teething » Creating Motherhood

Just when you think a phase is over

May 242010

Alas great mood, I knew thee well

This is so, so, so, sooooo wrong of me to admit because I am bound to jinx things, but here I go: I think we stumbled across a breakthrough with W’s sleeping issues. I haven’t written much about it because it seemed his no interest in sleep was normal and there wasn’t much to do about it but wade through the sleepless nights and the sleepier days.

So what was I doing before? Well we have a bedtime routine that starts as early as 5:00pm (depending on the day and whether or not he has had a proper nap). This part of the routine stays the same: dinner, bath, bottle, book, songs. In the past I would rock and sing to W until he was about 80% asleep and then I would slowly put him down. And he would bounce back up and begin screaming. The process was taking for fucking ever! (It has been months since I have seen jeopardy. Months!)

It got so bad that I pawned the putting down bit off to Mother guilting her with, “But I made dinner!” And at first she was a bedtime rock-star. W adored winding down with her. He adored it so much that eventually we realized he had somehow stretched what used to be a 10-15 minute process into nearly an hour (sometimes more). And even then he would never really settle down. Mother would basically try to wear him out and then would put him in the pack and play and leave his room. And he would get soooo pissed off that playtime had ended that he would stand in the corner of the pack and play and rock side to side while screaming for one of us to come back.

(insert awful, yucky, I’M A BAD MOTHER feelings here- because screaming baby has to be bad, right? Sigh.)

Bedtime had become another playtime for W. The calming down post dinner was turning into an alert moment that he didn’t want to miss. Because there was music! And swaying! And more books! Why on earth would a kid want to sleep when so much awesome was happening.

So as we were trying to sleep train W he was actually awake training us. Oh my brilliant, brilliant boy.

It was out of frustration that I took back the putting W down bit from my exhausted Mother. I stretched out bath-time by a few minutes, dressed him in jammies, grabbed a bottle and we quietly headed upstairs. As soon as we crossed the threshold of his room he shook his head, “nooooo”. I fed him his bottle (yes, we still use bottles for morning milk and evening milk) while reading two books. Then I turned on his sound machine, put him down, and walked away. And I swear it was if he knew I meant business because he didn’t immediately bounce back up like he used to. He cried but the crying stopped in under 30 seconds.

And now? Now I totally have a baby that can go to sleep on his own. At least for this moment in time. But probably not ever again because I just broke the rules by telling you all about it. I am also breaking the rules by sharing that when he wakes up from a nap he doesn’t immediately go to the yelling place, but now will play or babble a bit. And sometimes he will wake up, play for a bit, and then curl up and go back to sleep. (It does appear that we have evolved into one nap a day. *weeps*)

Just when I was ready to do the happy dance over successful sleep training I found out that another toddler beast was back. Oh yes. Monster teething is back. He has all of the baby teeth he will have until the 2 year molars show up for the party, but the canines are coming in so slowly. This morning they were noticeably more pronounced. And with that came a runny nose, no interest in food. Basically we have a whiny, flinging, flaily, head bonking, Captain unAdorable. (he shook his head at a banana, ya’ll. That is HUGE.)

Just yesterday he was so sweet and tender and lovely. And today he is super emo toddler that doesn’t even chuckle for Elmo. (I did manage to get a, “heh” out of him over an episode of Tom & Jerry but that could have been gas.)

Right now he is napping with his good friend generic ibuprofen and I am hoping that when he wakes up he will have bounced back. Pretty please.

Chew on this

teething 12 Responses »

Mar 162010

Just a quick post to show you what we have been working on over here. And when I say, “we” I mean W has been doing the work and the rest of us have just been dealing with the aftermath…

Meet W’s new tooth:

It's just another magic Monday

Asides, teething 10 Responses »

Feb 222010

First off- you are looking at a lady that got FIVE hours of uninterrupted sleep last night. And yes, I am celebrating. Because usually I get maybe three.

It goes a little something like this: Put W down between 7 or 8 (variation due to time spent in bath or time being silly), then do all the things I can’t do while he is awake (fold laundry, read blogs, read newspapers online), then sleep from around 11pm-1pm. Am roused awake by need to listen for W or need to pee. Am now AWAKE and can not get back to sleep from 1:30-sometimes 3:00. Finally get back to sleep. W starts stirring as early as 5am some mornings. And some mornings I ignore him and some mornings I can not. (babbling I can ignore, SCREAMING? not so much.)

So long stretches of sleep are just something that I day dream about.

Two nights ago W woke up SCREAMING three times. Nothing would calm him down. He was just so fussy. I attributed it to gas or a need to poo. Last night he slept sooooo well. And for some awesome reason so did I. (well I got those 5 consecutive hours!)

I am now going to segue awfully to an aside that will annoy you for a moment but just hang on- it all ties back in. Promise!

I am trying to teach W how to clap. He can give me some skin like a pro. And Mother and I have even been using his awesome “FIVE!!” enthusiasm to help teach him how to touch the dog. As in, “W, don’t yank on the Charlie’s hair. Give him five!”

However clapping is just something silly that the grown up people do. But oh man does he fucking LOVE the sound we make when we clap. Mother and I, for some reason, always say “YAY!!” when we clap. Now that is a sound that W really adores. So as we clap he joins in on the YAY!!! (oh good lawd is it cute.)

Ok, back to this morning. (see! Told you I would swing this boat back around.) W is in his high chair nomming on some melon and I think I see something else in his mouth. We are no longer in an era where I can just poke my fingers in his mouth as if I owned it. So I, clever mummy, just started clapping.

And as W joined in to gleefully proclaim, “YAY!!” I saw that he had cut another tooth on the left and had another one peeping through on the right. Downstairs. They appear to be the front molars as there is a bit of space between his incisors that I imagine the canines will eventually occupy.

So now I am relieved to know the reason behind the awful sleep. And just a bit, impressed (for lack of a better word) at how well he teethed. Previous teeth have been torture on all involved. I wonder if these just hurt less coming through or if the pain is just something that he is familiar with and is, I don’t know, taking in stride??

ANOTHER segue! Here it comes!

Hulu.com is the awesome. Big time love. BIG TIME. Not only can I watch all the shows I have been missing but many of them are closed captioned. (not very well, but anything is better than nothing) And yesterday afternoon I discovered that one of the random shows that I had ‘discovered’ last year was in a new season and I could watch it on hulu. Being Erica is fantastically Canadian. It is a show about a girl that is working on a list of regrets and she is able to time travel to see how things would have worked out had she taken a different path. I mean, seriously. A time travel show about therapy?? Love. And thanks to hulu I can watch it. Wooo!

And look! Another awkward segue!

I am going to take my dear, sweet, most beloved camera into a repair shop in DC today. It is one of those places that have been around since forever and they do on site repairs. They also don’t charge you for an estimate. All of the other repair places I looked into charged you $25 or up just to take a gander and if you agreed to a repair they shipped it off for weeks. I am freaking out that it will be something beyond my means, but it will be what it will be. I can still use the camera- just in manual mode. Which basically means every photo of W will be a blur. heh. I am going to be zen and just put out into the universe my hope: Please let this be a SIMPLE fix. As in a reset button or a quick cleaning. And please don’t let the price of the repair or clean be something that makes me cry.

Vanity Segue: I think I have found something that is helping my acne in the winter skin: tea tree & E antiseptic cream. Have only used it for three days but already there is improvement. And since I think like 4 other people that read this blog have adult acne in the winter I am going to share my find. (& by “share” I mean tell you what it is and where you can get it.) I found it on sale at the grocery store, but you can read about it and buy it from here.

And final segue: ooooooh!! It is Sock it to me week and I can not wait to show off the most awesome and amazing and beautiful socks that arrived. I have never seen anything so special and I feel most lucky and privileged to have such finery on my feet. I’ll be sharing tomorrow. Oh yes these size 13′s have never had it so good!

what is that saying about making plans?

On the move, teething 19 Responses »

Nov 162009

I will do my best not to whine too much, but ugh!! Packing sucks. And packing within pockets of someone’s sleep sucks more. And someone NOT napping at all is the worst. Somehow it will all get done. Right???

While I was up all night bouncing a teething* W I reworked my blog. A bit more streamlined. A bit more plaid. It should allow me to have larger photos within posts. It is an incredibly fun theme to work with- so if anyone is a self hosted wordpress blogger you will dig suffusion. (& no I am not saying that for any other reason than it is the awesome)

It also has threaded comments. Which should be fun.

Speaking of fun- am doing possibly the last load of laundry before The Move. For some reason I am all about being aware of lasts. Not sure if it is reverb from GM’s death or something else, but pretty much every task I do has some sort of label attached: last time I will…

*and before I forget to ask- how long does it take for the upstairs teeth to land? W still gas just a bit of white pushed through the gums. His behavior is allllllll about teething: no naps, cranky, drool, drool side effects (if you know what I mean).

I’m typing this out on my phone so there are bound to be errors. Think I am flailing and flopping around like a jelly fish. Speaking of jelly fish, I wonder if we will have a chance to take W to the beach one more time.

A message from the Captain

teething 17 Responses »

Nov 042009

Dictated, but not read:

“Just so all you people out there in the glow box don’t think I am a total slacker I wanted to inform you just what the heck I was DOING when I was in my crib around naptime-thirty this afternoon. Sure, maybe I was being a bit dramatic about things, but YOU try pushing some teeth out and see how you like it. That’s right. Teeth. And whatever the plural of teeth is, because I pushed out more than one. Of course they were a secret until dinner time when the giant, tired looking lady with a classy eau de barf scent and a ridiculous propinquity for plaid, reached into my mouth to clean up some carrots I was saving for later and I chomped down to show off my new accessories . I’ll try and keep things down at my next scheduled nap, but I can’t make any promises…”

Tomato pie and other weekend enjoyments

teething 24 Responses »

Aug 172009

Before diving into a simple post of weekend photos I want to say that I am really appreciating all of the thoughtful comments posted and stories e-mailed regarding the contact/don’t contact question I raised regarding my sister. Sending a note is not an option as I do not have her address, just a baby registry with an address hidden. I also feel like I should disclose more about the complicated nature of this relationship but I will come back to that later this week when I am not enduring a day of sleep deprivation and lack of caffeine.

So. Our weekend. Saturday was just a haze of W crying and me clock watching to see when I could give the next dose of tylenol or teething tablet. Alternative methods of, “Please stop crying/hurting/let go and nap” included hourly visits with the baby that lives in the bathroom mirror. Splashing of feet in the bathroom sink. Hours of knee bouncing and rocking and nursing and repeat.

Does anyone else find themselves saying super smart things like, “will you hold the baby while I go change him?”

Also. We are having some poop issues. (skip down to the paragraph with a red asterik now if poop talk is not your thing.) Teething didn’t really change the number of poops W creates- he is consistently been a baby that poops, on average, three times a day. Teething, if anything, made his poo a different, er, texture. But it was still liquid and still prevented me from ever being able to think of butternut squash soup again.

But then he went almost 3 days without poo. Yesterday, right before we were leaving the house (woo!) W gave a serious grunt and when I checked his pants things were almost solid. Like a firm pudding. Same color. Just not liquid. So is this teething or could it be because of the nasty liquid vitamins he started 11 days ago?

*/ Poop talk

Yesterday we all went to visit GM. Except she was already in bed and firmly in a nap and would not stir. She grunted in her sleep and didn’t even react when W began to sing to her. I kept waiting for her to pop her eyes open and show delight, but she was in some dimension of sleep that we could not rouse her from. Of course I felt guilty for delaying our visit because of a marathon nursing session but a floor attendant said that she had been napping for most of the day like that.

What really sucked was that after days, and days of W being in so much pain and wearing his Captain Adorable inside out he was finally in full on darling mode. Cooing, singing, laughing, delightful. And I didn’t get to share that with her. I took some photos but most are almost too hard too look at now.

The good news is that W & I were able to meet with Sarah yesterday afternoon as she drove towards her vacation destination. So W’s shining star of a Sunday personality went forth and conquered. I have actually never heard W laugh so much and exude so much merriment. And it was just all kinds of wonderful to see Sarah again and have her meet W.

When we came home W and I were knocked down by the amazing smells of yummy good cooking. While we were out Mother had whipped up tomato pie and an amazing cooked brie dish. Yes. You are jealous.

And for your final photo of the day, here is W doing his best dumb Donald but not quite pulling it off. Clearly because he is neither dumb, nor Donald. But hey, hey, hey…

And now there are two

photo friday, teething 16 Responses »

Aug 092009

I miss my happy boy. I miss sleep. It seems like our days are a cycle of comfort nursing, pooping, pain management, and TRYING to get someone to take a nap and failing. Yesterday it took sometimes an hour to get him to sleep and then he would only sleep for twenty minutes. I know I am supposed to be finding these sleep windows but I feel like teething turns on all of the lights and covers the windows and makes you stare at day-glow.

Oh and the other day I tried baby ora-gel on W’s gums only I missed his gums and ended up landing the berry flavored goop on his tongue and I can totally tell that a numb tongue blew his mind but I was so freaked out about over doing it that I didn’t try again.

Mother is trying to get W to nap right this very minute. She sings “oreo” to him over and over and over and over and of course it works. I suck at naps. Seriously. I am in the era of running on empty.

Thankfully I educated myself in how to work a french press coffee pot that I have had for years (& never used but purchased because doesn’t everyone own a french press?) and after three mornings of trial and error I have found my perfect ratio of coffee and steeping time. (7tbs ground coffee, 32 ounces of almost boiling water, 7 minutes steep)

There are also banana nut muffins in the oven (from a “just add water” mix, don’t get too excited).

GM is having a birthday this week and sometimes when I think about that I cry a little and I can’t figure out why. I think it is because she really has no idea. Mother went to visit her yesterday evening and brought a cat. Yes a cat. (Mother has 4 cats that I make ask her to keep happily contained in her living quarters as on any given day one of them is bound to have a bowel issue.)

So she brought in the easiest cat to wrangle, a long lean machine named Earl. Mother says the visit went well enough but that GM didn’t really understand what the cat was or how one would interact with it. GM is also making a sort of guttural sound on every exhale. She has been doing this for days and we are not sure if this is an issue or another moment where something goes wonky and the cast just throws up their hands and exclaim, ‘Well that’s Alzheimer’s!” and the studio audience laughs.

So it is her birthday in two days. She will be 88. The 88 is also the name of one of my favorite bands.

I am going to make chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and the head nurse is going to allow us to smuggle in a candle that we can only have lit in her room. And Mother and I are sort of struggling with how to celebrate. We have a few little gift ideas but really we just want to make her feel special, maybe even make her remember what a Birthday celebration feels like.

I keep asking her if she wants a pony which she finds hysterical. Which is why I ask her. Because hearing her laugh is a thread that is so connected to the fabric of who she still is to her core.

Adventures in Teething Part II

teething 9 Responses »

Aug 052009

Also known as, no thanks, I’ve got a built in teether.

Yesterday: a photo post

teething 5 Responses »

Jul 262009

W and I sing: “I love you a bushel and a peck”

We think we are brilliant singers! GM is unmoved.

Nothing to see inside yet, but check out my drool.

New adventures in teething

teething 29 Responses »

Jul 242009

Oh hi. Turns out we may have a pretty tangible reason (& you know I always love a reason) why Captain Adorable has turned into Captain Rage. Upstairs AND downstairs teeth!

The one upstairs isn’t as advanced as downstairs. The one in the bottom gum you can actually feel and see a bit of the tooth pushing through. But oh my goodness does it hurt!

I have some teething rings in the freezer, as well as a damp washcloth- but are there any other tricks that I can use that will make this rite of passage go any easier? I’ve got a call into his doctor (because, yes, I AM that new Mama) to make sure I do everything as right as I can.

And also- and this may be a stupid question- but now that teeth are involved how will our breastfeeding relationship change. Or to be more direct: is this going to hurt me???

I really am so glad to have an explanation for the reccord number of poops and the fussy, cranky, all day drama baby. I just hate that he hurts so much.

It’s mine! All MINE!