A time for milestones

My six-month, 24-day old son has now learned to clap his hands. He's about 2 months ahead of where his sister was on this development. He has also (for about 2 weeks now) been rolling over from back to front. Unfortunately, he hasn't quite learned to roll the other way consistently, so he frequently rolls over in the middle of the night and gets frustrated because he cannot roll back. Persistent grunting turns into crying, and that means I get to leave my warm comfy bed (sometimes SEVERAL TIMES) during the night. Part of that could also be teething-related; something he's also doing a couple months in advance of his sister, who got her first tooth at 8 months.

We've also begun trying solids. Apart from the oatmeal and rice cereal the pediatrician recommended for iron supplementation, he's now tasted squash (and LOVED it), carrots (which stain worse than blood - I recommend getting Shout! or another stain remover), peas, and green beans (which he equally detests). He has also had applesauce (and I'm not sure if he really likes it because he makes the same "yuck" face he makes with green veggies). Still, he's a super kid and continues to eat it despite the "yuck" face. Unfortunately, with solids comes the end of those cute breast-fed baby poops. They aren't horrifying yet, but they will be getting worse and worse as the consistency of the foods he tries increases.

My three-year, 8-month-old daughter can write nearly all the letters of the alphabet on her Magna-doodle. She talks herself through the process, which is not only adorable, but also lets us know what type of learner she is. Saying things aloud while doing them means she is an auditory learner. Just like her daddy! "So the P is a line down, and a loop on the side!"

Naps continue to be a struggle with her, but she managed to take one 3 days in a row at our daycare provider's home. The provider did a mock-phone call to us as a fear inducer. She really wants to please us, so she went right to sleep. I think this only had to be done once, with reminders the next two days ("Remember, I will call Mommy and Daddy to tell them you aren't sleeping..."). Of course, she knows that if she DOES sleep, she gets to watch one of her favorite cartoons when she gets home, before dinner. As parents, we actually HATE it when we can't reward her for making good choices. The cartoon thing is also a way to keep her occupied while we make dinner in the evening. Of course, our little girl does love to help. And helping is perfectly okay for a 3 1/2-year-old to handle.

She can set the table (one dish at a time), place out the silverware, take empty cups over, etc. After dinner, she helps with clean-up. Now that she is no longer terrified of our Dust-Buster, we let her use it to get the crumbs off our hardwood floor under the table each night. Usually it's her mess anyway. She also helps clear the dishes (she's still too short to place items in the sink, and letting her throw them in has already ended in 2 broken dishes) - she brings them to one of us, who is already sink-side.

Starting them early on routine house maintenance and the concepts of cleaning up what we mess up will help keep us from having an infuriating teen-ager who does nothing. At least, that's the hope!

Rice is nice.

Today, little J (who is a few days shy of his 5-month-birthday) had a few bites of rice cereal mixed with breast milk.  His face was just precious.  He very happily opened his mouth when the spoon came near it, but the first bite was quite obviously not what he expected.  There was some blowback.  The next few bites went a little better, and he became a little chow-hound.  It got to the point where I apparently was not fast enough with the spooning, so he tried to help expedite by grabbing the spoon.  This served only to dump its contents into my lap.  He quickly got angry.  We opted to "boob him up" for the rest of this feeding.

He has been physiologically ready for solids for about a month now, but since he was gaining weight at a very decent pace (95th percentile) I felt it unnecessary to introduce rice cereal.  In addition, J may (or may not) be our last baby, so there is a very unique desire to keep him a baby for longer.  Since he sat unsupported at 20 weeks (we have to put him there, but he can stay up pretty well), it was time.  Unfortunately, he cannot quite sit in a high chair or anything so solids will definitely wait until at least the recommended six months.

Am I going bald?

So you've had a baby about three months ago.  Your body has recovered pretty much to the point it was before you got pregnant (although your abdomen may appear otherwise).  Your muscles may still be a bit weak in the abdominal wall, and you may have some extra flab, but for the most part your body functions have resumed "normal" activity.  Of course, if you are breastfeeding, there is that major change, too.  One thing you may be experiencing now (like I am) is hair loss.  A lot of hair loss.

This seemingly unnatural and excessive evacuation of hair from your head is due to the growth cycles being disrupted during pregnancy and not (let me repeat, NOT) from breastfeeding.  Your hair passes through a three-phase life cycle: anagen (growth phase) - which can last an average of three years, catagen (transition phase), and telogen (resting phase) - which lasts from 1 to 6 months with an average of 3 months.  Normally, about 85 to 95 percent of the hair on your head is growing and the other 5 to 15 percent is in a resting stage. After the resting period, this hair falls out — usually while you're brushing, washing, or otherwise agitating it — and is replaced by new growth.  The new (anagen) hairs actually push the old (telogen) hairs out of the follicle.  During a normal, non-pregnant, non-postpartum time of your life, you'd lose about 100 hairs per day.

During pregnancy, the boost of estrogen extends the normal growth phase of the cycle so that more and more of your hair is growing rather than resting.  Hence the thick, sexy hair you had while pregnant.  Once you give birth, estrogen levels plummet.  Of course, about 3 months postpartum (on average), the telogen (resting) phase has completed and progressed back to anogen (growth)... and the hair falls out of your head seemingly all at once.  Hair may come out in clumps, or you look at your brush and it's furry, or your shower drain has to be snaked almost daily... personally, I feel like I could make at least one wig from all the hair on my bathroom floor right now.

There's more.  Hair texture, color, and level of oiliness or dryness could change postpartum as well.  If you had wavy hair before, it might be stick-straight now.  It could be super-oily when it used to be on the dry side.  It could be coarse when it was once baby-fine.  You really get all kinds of surprises along with the gift of motherhood.

The good news is, sometime between 6 months and 1 year postpartum everything goes back to normal.  Your hair resumes its normal growth cycle, texture, etc.  However, if you still notice a lot of these changes beyond your baby's first birthday, you could be iron deficient (also a common postpartum ailment).  Your health care provider can prescribe a supplement if necessary.  Another possibility is hypothyroidism (low thyroid hormone) - another fairly common postpartum condition that can easily be remedied by your health care provider.  If you are concerned, the doctor's office is your first resource for help.

WHAT TO DO:

1. Experiment with your hair.  Try a shorter haircut or a textured one, cut some bangs (to minimize the appearance of the whispy baby-hair along your forehead), or use a wash-and-go method rather than excessively styling.
2. Try some different hair care products that bulk up the hair.
3. Change your comb/brush to one that is less likely to tug and stress the hair (wider-tooth combs are better during this time).
4. If you have long hair, check your baby OFTEN for one of your hairs wrapped tightly around the baby's toes, fingers, or (yes, even) penis.  This is called a "hair tourniquet" and can be very painful to your little one.  If he or she is crying and you've already done the typical feeding, diapering, and fatigue checks, this should be the very next thing you look for.

I'm holding out for sometime between three and nine months from now.  Until then, I just know I have to clean the bathroom a bit more often than I enjoy.

Relocation

We are a military family.  For those who don't know, one of the biggest challenges faced ROUTINELY by military families is the instability created from frequent moves.  Often, these moves can be from one side of the country, or even the world, to the other.  In the last two years, we have had a deployment, a move from Washington to Georgia, and a move from Georgia to Alaska.  Now, we are scheduled to move from Alaska to Maryland in a matter of days.  The impact of such changes can be brutal to a child.

For example, our daughter was (sort of) potty trained while we lived in Georgia.  Then, somewhere between packing up, spending time in North Carolina and Virginia with relatives, and driving across half the US and Canada before arriving in (no kidding) North Pole, Alaska, she became "untrained" all over again.  It took months to recover, and she still has some inexplicable and VERY preventable accidents.  Case in point, about a month ago, she stated she needed to use the potty, then proceded to stand in front of it on her stool with her pants down, and pee on herself rather than just SIT DOWN on the toilet that was touching the back of her thighs as she stood there.  Infuriating!

This next move will be no less than a logistical nightmare.  We have two cats, two children, two adults, a car, and a house full of stuff to move over 4,000 miles.  We are splitting the family to accommodate all of our needs as best we can.  My husband and daugther will go first, with the cats, house-hunting and visiting with all our east-coast relatives.  The baby boy and I will remain behind to tie up loose ends and so I can continue to nurse him.  I also must face the incredibly challenging, expensive, and yet important task of shipping frozen breast milk east.  It will likely cost over $100 to send a mere 48 ounces of frozen milk over that great distance.  But it's like gold to me.  I literally get teary-eyed when I have to pour out even two ounces that the boy didn't finish at daycare.  Could you imagine tossing 8 full feedings' worth?

Our daughter has shown great resilience in these challenges with moving.  With the exception of the pee and poop accidents (that have seemed to dwindle down to a rare occurrence - mostly due to distraction), she has been able to adapt well to all the changes.  I wonder if her baby brother will be able to show the same kind of resilience?  Well, he is only 3 months old.  He won't remember.  But she will.  I wonder how she'll be able to face the loss of her friend, a little boy a few months younger than she is, whom we'll visit for the last time today?

Growing too fast!

Of course. It's what they all say. But when you observe your eleven week old son licking his lips as he watches another baby being spoon-fed sweet potatoes, it definitely hits home.

He is still developmentally too young to start rice cereal mixed with breast milk, but now I am keenly aware that I will not have to struggle with the introduction of a spoon as I did with his big sister.  His interest alone is enough to let me know we can start as soon as his little digestive system can handle it.

In other news, he is also sleeping a 6 hour stretch from about 9 pm till 3 am every night. I so want to push his bedtime to the right just to get his stretch to match mine, but he gets ridiculously angry with a later bedtime and wakes at 3 anyway, so we will hang tough a while longer. If our firstborn was any indication, his timeline will shift on its own soon anyway.

I am afraid if I blink, he will be three like his sister...at which point she would be six. Sigh... Too fast.

The List

EUREKA!!!!

We have discovered a method that works.  As mentioned in the previous blog, our 3-year-old was adamantly opposed to independently clothing herself.  I should mention that creativity in parenting style is an absolute must-have.  So, using my creative brain, I developed a list.

1. Wake up.
2. Use the toilet.
3. Brush teeth.
4. Get dressed.
5. Comb hair.
6. Make the bed.

It seemed a little ambitious, I know.  It might be kind of hard to expect a 3-year-old to do these tasks.  I went a step further and animated each item on the list with a little girl that looks kind of like my little girl.  Since she can't read yet, I had to effectively demonstrate the activity being performed for each item on the list.  The girl has quite a memory on her, though... so I really only had to say it once and she quickly stored it away.  And HALLELUJAH, she got out of bed and did EVERY item on her list.  We were ready to go in less than thirty minutes.

When I saw she checked the list before bedtime too (even though it was a wake-up list), I did the next logical thing and made a good-night list, too.  This one has more steps, but I felt having a streamlined bedtime routine might be worthwhile.

1. Get undressed.
2. Put in the hamper.
3. Put on P.J.s.
4. Feed the kitties.
5. Brush teeth.
6. Use the toilet.
7. Get ONE book.
8. Good night!

Again, I animated each item so she'd know what each thing meant.  I posted the wake-up list at her eye level on her bedroom door, and the good-night list at her eye level on the bathroom door.  Sometimes she gets confused, or when she's trying to stall will "accidentally" do the wake-up list instead of the good-night one.  And yet, the child loves structure.  Who knew?  I didn't.  It was just a guess, and a lucky one at that.

The War for Independence

I realize that much of my recent blogging has been about the Rookie in our midst. Not to omit the Firstborn from her rightful place in the blogosphere, today's piece is about her.

We have tried to instill a certain degree of autonomy in our preschooler because studies have shown that it is healthy for a child to exhibit independence in a safe home environment. Unfortunately, our child blatantly refuses to acknowledge, much less accept, this autonomy (except in those rare situations when we stress conforming to societal norms, such as exhibiting appropriate social behavior in public). While we try to educate our daughter that it is generally unacceptable to poo one's pants and subsequently remove one's socks, put them on one's hands, pick up the poop, and parade it around the house, we also have placed importance on the ability to dress and undress oneself. Too much importance, apparently, as the inherent talent most 3-year-olds possess is the ability to sense what is meaningful to parents and that they must destroy it.

Most kids her age, however, are also quite adept at removing all of their clothing (most frequently in the supermarket or other unsanctioned locales) even if their proficiency in donning clothing leaves a bit to be desired. Not so with our daughter, whose tactic remains to be either teary-eyed caterwauling or going limp when attempts are made to train her on this developmental stage.

It appears that this battle for independence is going to be hard won, but we will manage to force this autonomy upon our child just as nations force political systems on other nations. After all, it is for her own good.