Hello Mudduh Hello Fadduh: ILX Rolling Parenting Thread

we have a 16-month-old son, named z0ller, or Z, who was born three months premature and spent 90 days in the hospital before coming home (not the best 3 months of my life) -- but who has been completely healthy and happy ever since. we still adjust his age for, you know, evaluative purposes, because he's more like a 13-month-old than a 16-month-old, but obviously that'll matter less and less with time.

anyway, we split his care. because i mostly work evenings (and weekends) and have time off midweek, we only need a nanny two days a week, which is nice. (and way more affordable -- it would be hard to pay for 5 days of child care.) where he's at, development wise -- still crawling, but also "cruising" (walking around by holding onto things, i didn't know there was actually a verb for it, i feel weird when i tell people my son is cruising...). he'll walk three or four steps unassisted before teetering. i guess he'll be walking outright in not too long, but i'm not in a hurry. he's hard enough to keep track of as it is. no real words yet, except possibly "ba" for bath -- my wife wants to give him credit for this, i'm not totally convinced -- but lots of babbling. and he completely loves music. he's obsessed with my guitar, so we bought him a small guitar and a ukelele of his own, which he'll sit and strum, kind of adorable.

um, i'll shut up for the moment because i could probably write about him for hours. but that's the basics.

my parent profile: a son in grade two, a daughter in grade five

son's obsessions: the color blue, becoming a broadway star, ulysses s. grant, legos and bionicles, judaism, the eruption of mt. vesuvius, the state of north carolina, swords, narnia, beetle bailey, time warp trio, the four tops' greatest hits album, stuffed animals, the milwaukee brewers (but maybe not so much now that junior spivey and lyle overbay, his two favorite players, are gone)

daughter's activities: youth choir, piano lessons and recitals, soccer, hebrew school, sunday school, school safety patrol, exchanging e-cards and chain letters and joke emails with her friends, watching reruns of 'felicity' and 'gilmore girls' with her mom and premiership matches on saturday morning with me

Everyone always says "Oh, they're lovely at that age" no matter what age they may be. Like it's all going to go horribly rotten any time soon.

I say they're wrong, and we'll be pals for life. SO there!

Sarah's the only part of my life I'm not stressed to a frazzle about right now. I don't know how many parents of teens can say that.

Everyone always says "Oh, they're lovely at that age" no matter what age they may be. Like it's all going to go horribly rotten any time soon.
I say they're wrong, and we'll be pals for life. SO there!

I like this a lot, and agree.

Eats well - there's little we've given her she hasn't wolfed down. Started off in the 9th percentile but now she's in the 50th (20lbs).

Illnesses - bout of gastro when she was 8 months, frequent colds (especially since she started being more social with the local babes) including one nasty chest infection which was our first tentative foray into medicating the child. Obviously she's hooked on amoxicillin now.

One night when her chesty cough was keeping her awake we brought her to bed with us (for the first time since she was about 15 days old) and she rewarded us with "Mumma". We nearly phoned the papers. "Dadda" and "Yeah" (or its infinitely cuter variant "Yeth") have followed but, for all her freeform babble, she's not yet pointing and naming. She can sing the Banana Splits theme though - or a Coltrane-style reimagining of it anyway. Disappointingly, she really doesn't like the spin cycle on the washing machine or the sound of the vacuum cleaner; maybe she'll grow to love the drone like her dad.

Slept wonderfully well for the first 7 months but since the onset of teething she has at least one bad night once a week. Naps twice a day if we're lucky; Saturday we give her breakfast in bed with us and she drifts off after a bout of larking about. Saturdays are ace.

She'll dance (an up-and-down hip wiggle) to practically anything with any semblance of melody or rhythm. If I clap out a beat, Steve Reich style, her face lights up and she starts strutting her stuff. She's lost in music.

My wife was meant to return to work full-time a few weeks ago but the childcare options just weren't affordable; instead, I work full-time and she freelances (overspill from my job, actually) - she grabs the laptop every Ava naptime and also between 9 and midnight most nights. It's tough but there's no other way to make ends meet.

Here's a little picture of her...

ihttp://static.flickr.com/36/74747750_59f6ce8c34_m.jpg

She can be the sweetest or most insufferable creature ever at any given moment. But I love her to pieces all the same.

My wife's home with her while I "bring home the bacon."

Lola loves to dance, and my wife has recently been playing a lot of latin jazz, the gypsy kings and the soundtrack to the last temptation of christ, which lola loves!

We're trying to potty train. It was going great a few weeks ago, but lola has lost all interest in using the potty at this point. Not sure what to do now.

Tons more stuff going on, but I'll leave it there.

Louis is seven weeks today. He does not have colic. VICTORY.

Here he is from a week ago:
http://static.flickr.com/13/89302126_e39276305a.jpg

The thing I worry about now: we let her sleep 5 and a half hours (and even a bit longer) during the night. We've been told that it should be five max, so are we being selfish letting her sleep longer? Worry? Me? Oh yeah. :-)

http://static.flickr.com/12/90981886_96546c9b92_m.jpg

Here she was about three minutes old.

(Can I just say posting here on this thread is freaky but also makes me insanely happy! I AM A MOMMA! :-) )

Louis vs. Ophelia CUETNESS FITE!

ava is lovely, wow.

People who are into it are really into it (and I can see why), people who aren't, just aren't. It's hard to say there's an average american view toward it. My husband has two brothers and neither of their wives breastfed, and neither did my mother-in-law, so she was asking a lot of questions. She thought I must not be producing enough milk when we said he ate every two hours (actually I am producing too much, it's just that it gets digested more quickly than formula) etc etc. Not exactly supportive but not discouraging either, it's like it's just another weird thing I do.

If your experience is similar to mine, Nathalie, you're just getting past the hardest part, where everything hurts and you're both figuring things out. I remember in the third week it suddenly turned into the most awesome thing ever. I can't imagine fiddling with a bottle and formula every time the kid cries, he's pissed off enough by waiting until I get a boob out.

The golden rule regarding sleeping/feeding is if the kid is making enough poop and pee, don't worry about how often they eat. If they're not 'producing' enough, it's possible that they're not eating enough and don't have the energy to wake up. Enjoy the long stretches of sleep. Louis does pretty well in this regard too. I sleep with him in my bed because he goes longer between night feedings that way--only wakes up once or twice. And it's so nice to cuddle with him. Sleeping with a baby is a bit controversial but I'm going with anything that makes the family happy.

My wife tried breastfeeding, but didn't take to it and we switched to similac after 2 weeks or so.

Here's a picture of him at Halloween, hope this works. If for some reason it doesn't, will anybody be kind enough to tell me how to post pics?

ihttp://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tcbeing4/detail?.dir=5759&.dnm=5a75.jpg&.src=ph

3rd grader began reading before she was four, and read The Secret Garden and The Wizard of Oz the summer before going into Kindergarten. She still reads constantly, but now she reads crap like Mary Kate & Ashley and Hillary Duff adventures (blech). She had a part in the school play a few months ago and now is convinced that she wants to be a drama queen, so we're getting her in classes soon.

Kindergartener is the typical boy. He likes bugs and boogers and annoying his sister. He is quite possibly the biggest dork ever. I have a little media file of him dancing in a poodle skirt, water socks, and a bridal veil to the Miami Vice theme song. He likes to make everyone laugh and he's friends with everyone.

Baby is still a baby. She screams and laughs and punches and spits mashed squash all over the dining room. She rolls and rolls but has yet to fall off anything. She can almost sit up by herself. And she's huge. Last doctor visit she weighed 18 pounds. I think she's in the 90% for weight and only 25% for height. But all my kids were porkers that evened out when they started walking. So I don't care. I'll keep feeding her when she's hungry.

http://homepage.mac.com/rebmcdowell/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/2006-01-13%2009.25.54%20-0800/Image-0FE7D829845511DA.jpg

One step-son, Sean who is 29. One daughter, Sarah who turned 24 this week. One step-daughter, Carolyn who is 23. One son, Jordan who is 22.

Sean and Carolyn live in Seattle and work for the same commercial printer. They are both heavily into bikes. Sean does beautiful things with flowers and did the arrangements for our wedding 2 years ago. Carolyn did do wonderful black and white photography, but got bored of it. She's studying urban environmental planning, off and on. I met them for the first time a few months after I began dating their father, when they came to a holiday party, and I got the opportunity to really get to know Carolyn when she lived with us for 2 years.

Sarah is in the master's program at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, studying Spanish and focusing on translation theory. Her bachelor's degree is in Spanish and art. She's engaged (which troubles me), and they were to marry last year, but have postponed it indefinitely. We are going to Las Vegas next weekend to see her.

Jordan lives in Florida and is a business analyst for a bank. He doesn't call his mother nearly enough, and I get panicky occasionally when I don't hear from him for months on end.

From 1996 - 1999, I had a job that required incessant travel. Fortunately, I was able to take Sarah and Jordan with me on several long trips, including one of 4 weeks to various parts of Australia (Sydney and Darwin mostly). We are all very computer-literate and began keeping in contact electronically. In 1999, I made the wretching decision to divorce their father, and I moved from AZ to Seattle. Due to their school situation, the kids stayed in AZ with their father, visiting me for summers and occasionally at holidays. After Sarah began college, Jordan began failing school. Everything, including driver's ed. He spent his life, 20 hours a day, on-line playing Everquest. His father, who has his own problems, didn't notice and when he did, didn't know what to do. After a summer staying with us in Seattle, Jordan decided to stay with us, opting to get a GED and try community college and working. He is a self-taught programmer. Due to his incessant gaming, he can type (accurately) 180 wpm, so eventually he got a job doing data entry for a bank. This repetitive work bored him, so he wrote a few programs to handle the task. Someone noticed he was processing several thousand times the data of anyone else, and now he's doing well for himself with them.

Except for a few months of maternity leave, I worked. When we moved to AZ (ca. 1990), their father stayed home with them while I worked. This worked out well for the kids, but not so for him or our situation. Anyway, they have turned out well, and I'm immensely proud of them.

Kids are totally underrated.

Sounds good to me. Ava's never had much of a problem filling that nappy.

Sleeping with a baby is a bit controversial but I'm going with anything that makes the family happy.

It just seemed like the obvious solution when it was clear she wouldn't settle from day one in the cot; we were nervous about it but it seems almost as there's some invisible force preventing you from rolling over during the night. We only did it for a couple of weeks, then she graduated to the bassinet at her mum's side of the bed, then to the end of the bed, then to the bassinet inside the cot and, finally, after maybe 6-7 weeks, to the cot all on her ownio next door. We felt like we'd really accomplished something!

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tcbeing4/detail?.dir=5759&.dnm=5a75.jpg&.src=ph

Can we talk about the childcare situation? My wife and I both work, but currently have the luxury of 'working from home' one day a week each, so oliver is at daycare the rest of the week. This will not last, as work is suffering for both of us. I like having him in daycare for social reasons, and he seems to love it, but I HATE that he (and us) are sick ALL THE TIME! What are your childcare solutions? Is the ultimate really to have one parent home all day with the kid(s), or is this a myth of a previous generation?

Rightclick on the photo and choose to Copy image location.
In your post, type (without the space between the < and the img), then paste the photo link, then type (again, without the space).

http://us.f2.yahoofs.com/users/41cb082fz7929dc0b/5759/__sr_/5a75.jpg?phQUk2DBAcf4T1jX

Kids get sick a lot no matter what. Yeah, daycare is a disease incubator but they are going to run across disease in kindergarten.

Got another one in the pipeline - due July.

With my first son, we started at 18 months and tried hard for 45 days but he just couldn't do it...we tried this early because his brother was on the way and we thought it would be great to only buy one set of diapers. He ended up getting trained at 25 months. Our second son got it at 23 months. Up until the 1950s, 90% of kids were potty trained at two. The advent of disposable diapers changed everything because a) it's harder for kids to discern that they're wet, b) when they do get wet, the diaper doesn't get uncomfortable and c) parents are either lazy or don't get any help from their childcare provider.

RAH TEENY FOR BREASTFEEDING!

http://www.gushertech.com/potm/images/photo5.jpg

thanks don and congrats on your new one. I do really enjoy breastfeeding but it can be hard sometimes, totally no judgement on anyone who goes the formula route. But it is so urgent and key that you have lots of support and education--my trials have been pretty minor and I was still ready to throw in the towel plenty of times. I think we've got the hang of it now, and I hope I can breastfeed my little guy for a while. I'm not sure if my oversupply problems will resolve themselves or not, and I've read that kids will often self-wean early in this situation--they get tired of the fire hose when they start and can't effectively nurse for comfort when the boob is empty because it never really gets empty and they overfeed. Nursing for long stretches on just one side has helped a lot. But if I hadn't had the internet I would have never figured it out.

I did for both with a diaper service and these wool covers called BioBottoms. We had a nanny at home (we lived in a trailer! I paid more for childcare than we did for housing.) until Jordan was 6 months old - at that point, they both went to daycare. Sarah was potty-trained, but Jordan had to go into disposables. More expensive, but definitely more convenient. When my brother was a baby (I was 9 or so), my mom used cloth diapers that we washed. It's a ton of work.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/Untitled-9.jpg

random thoughts --

breastfeeding: this was a casualty, kind of, of Z's prematurity. my wife dutifully used a pump for the whole 3 months he was in the hospital, refrigerated and took the milk in for the nurses to feed him. but i think it was hard to really get things working at full capacity. physically and psychologically, i think you really need a baby there. (actually, the psychological part of it was really interesting. you think it's just some automatic thing, turn it on and it works, but it's way more complicated.) when he came home, he did breastfeed for a few months, but it was never enough to fully feed him and over time just tapered off. my wife was really sad when it ended.

sleeping: we've been co-sleepers, but we're working him toward the crib finally. he goes in there at least half the night. it's funny, we didn't start out intending to do have him in the bed, but it was so much easier initially, and once everybody gets used to it then it's kind of hard to just kick him out. (also, i have a friend who wrote a book on "attachment parenting" who's very pro-co-sleeping, so that helped reassure me.) we never worried about rolling over on him, because he came home from the hospital with a repiration and heart monitor that we had to hook him up to every night (preemies being at risk for apnea, etc), so we had an alarm that would go off if anything went wrong. we had that monitor for about 5 months, and by then he was big enough that it didn't seem like a concern.

of course, now he's even bigger and he's starting to take up serious bed space, plus the rolling and kicking, so it's definitely time for him to be in his own bed. it's kind of sad in a way, tho -- we're both used to him being there, it's so sweet to wake up in the middle of hte night and find him cuddled against you. i know there are people who freak out about babies in the bed, but it seems completely natural to me. it must be how babies were raised for thousands of years, before someone invented cribs.

xpost:
my mom used cloth diapers on my little brother. he's 12 years younger than me, so my sister and i changed and washed a LOT of those things. tellingly, neither of us use them for our own kids...

my wife suffered mightily from breastfeeding for a while but stuck with it like a trooper, eventually becoming quite good. as for runover: pump, save, freeze, thaw, give in bottle, all good.

God, lots of cute photos!

Formula is revolting stuff, isn't it? I can't wait for her to move onto cow's milk.

Disposables here - Pampers to begin with then the more eco-friendly ones from Sainsbury's (the name of which I'm blanking on despite having bought hundreds of the buggers). Not so eco-friendly is the fact that we have to drive to Lower Sydenham to buy them (with the rumoured coming of Waitrose to our neighbourhood, we may no longer have to do this).

More pics at http://www.sterlingwolk.com .

He's still nursing up a storm, and is also very enthusiastic about basically every solid food we've given him. When we make something without dairy/soy/nuts, we grind some up in a food mill and give it to him; he likes to eat what we eat. Hasn't yet figured out the sippy cup. Very interested in walking, and pulls up on everything, but isn't up to cruising yet. Very VERY interested in talking, and has no words yet but a wide assortment of phonemes, which he often arrays into a lecture.

The one really big issue is sleep. He sleeps between us, and will not go to sleep until at least midnight, sometimes later--if we try to take him to bed before he's good & ready, it's Party Time!!!, and he freaks out completely if he finds himself awake and alone in his crib. (If he nurses to sleep and we put him in the crib, we have a window of maybe eight minutes tops before he opens his eyes for a second, realizes we aren't there, and screeches inconsolably. Self-soothing? Forget it.) Anecdotal suggestions are welcome.

Lisa & I both work at home, so at least one of us is with him all the time (although we are talking to some people who might watch him 5-10 hours a week). As you can imagine, this has decimated our productivity...

ah, the bedtime issue. we struggle with this too, although in our case it's mostly our (or my) fault -- i work evenings, mostly, so i don't go to bed until 2 or 3 myself, and Z's kind of gotten on my schedule. he'll stay up til 1 some nights, and the earliest we ever get him down is 11. of course, i don't want him to go to bed too early, because i prefer to sleep until 10 or so myself. it's a bit of a conundrum. but the key for us is nap management -- he needs a nap (occasionally two), but we need to try to get it done in midafternoon. if he gets to dinnertime w/out a nap, we're in trouble.

on moving him into the crib, what we do is let him fall asleep with one of us (usually my wife, since she goes to bed first), and then move him into the crib once he's completely conked out. he'll stay there for anywhere from an hour to (sometimes) all night. if he wakes up crying while i'm still up, i'll just rock him for a few minutes until he goes back to sleep and put him back in the crib. if he wakes up when both of us are already in bed, we just pull him into the bed for the rest of the night. at least he's getting used to the idea of being in the crib, even if he doesn't love it.

One of the best things we did was keep the house noise level fairly constant, music and talking at normal levels during the day regardless of whether they were sleeping or not and a white noise generator at night.

we're moving the baby out of our room next week at 9 weeks. She's sleeping from 11pm to 6 or 7 am so it's time. Sleeping with your kids is great but a very hard habit to break. I'm more of the opinion that it's MY room and OUR bed (I don't need extra excuses for not getting laid.)

I'm pretty anal about getting kids on a regular schedule...gypsy, there's just no way I could deal with my little ones if they stayed up that late at night! The white noise generators are nice...UNTIL YOU FORGET THEM WHEN YOU GO OUT OF TOWN.

(and congrats to you Teeny and all other parents!)

In a hotel no-white-noise emergency: radio set to static. Not quite the same, but sufficient in a pinch.

We put our boy in the crib with a bottle of water (my wife did not breastfeed though). And the sucking on liquid (was never interested in the pacifier) puts him to sleep in minutes. Otherwise, he'd be screaming. I don't know if this move is suggested by the experts though. Also, at one point my son would wake up every morning around 3:30 or 4am wanting a bottle, though the dr. told us he didn't really need a bottle considering what he was getting during the day. When my wife went on a business trip, I did the ol' tough love for three nights and he really hasn't woken up early for a bottle since. So regrettably, at some point, maybe you'll just need to let him cry. Though if he's genuinely not tired, that's something I'm not too familiar with.

not much can exceed the joy of when you pick them up from someplace and they come running, so excited to see you.

So true!

OTM, U&K!!!

Congrats Don on your new bebeh and to ILXor spawning in general. This thread is saving my sanity and heart after a really suck-ass week.

yeah, for me it's how excited he gets whenever i or my wife come home. he also gets excited for his nanny and his occupational therapist (a side benefit for preemies, in new york state at least -- they tend to qualify for a lot of developmental coaching). lately he's been applauding enthusiastically when people walk in the door. it's nice to get an ovation just for coming home.

One day old, already world-weary:

Showing off her favorite new playground bruises and her new kitten, Zippy (who is old and crotchety, but with us still):

The giddy joy on her face when I get home in the evenings does happily obliterate any amount of accumulated work/public transport stress.

Oh, and the other great thing about Saturdays - lying in bed listening to her on the baby monitor go through her whole babbling/singing repetoire at 7-8am before she starts to get a bit more urgent in her vocalisation and it's time to mash up some banana and muesli. Every day there's a new phrase or vocal trick - "What is that?! I've never heard her do that before."

Right now she's been down for about 45mins (it was a "low" fuss tonight) and she's doing the occasional long sigh in her half-sleep state. I wish I could embed a little MP3 or something...

Briefly: son, Adrian, roughly 1.5 years. Latest development: has suddenly become confident enough in his walking skills to no longer look where he's going, and naturally there has been a sudden upsurge in collisions with most things pain-causing. First ten months almost exactly like Sterling's. Amazingly hasn't had anything worse than a runny nose.

Taken on Halloween:

http://www.jodeeandy.com/ajk/051013.JPG

xpost

our kid loves books, sometimes to pieces. we're currently on our second copy of "8 silly monkeys" (jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head, etc...). but he'll sometimes sit for 15 minutes at a stretch, flipping his way through a book, turning it upside down and flipping back, etc. when he wants to be actually read to, he'll bring one to us. apart from "8 Silly Monkeys" he likes "goodnight moon" (of course), "the fox went out on a chilly night" (because i sing it to him, to the burl ives tune), and really anything with bright colors and moving parts (we have a couple of pop-up type things).

xpost: Z can do the sippy cup, but he's not too into it. he's more interested in just regular cups, but the problem of course is after one or two gulps (half of which careen down his shirt), he just dumps the whole thing out. so i only really let him do that in the bath.

This is last summer when he was learning to swim - at one point he had a mask, flippers, arm floaties and a ring around his middle. My sister says it's because he's a Virgo and didn't want to take any chances, but I think secretly, he thought he looked cool. Like AquaBatMan. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/lunacee/boointhepool.jpg

This is him last September on the first day of school. The role of sidekick is being played by my mom. He's 8 now, in 3rd grade and has just been accepted to the gifted program which apparently doesn't really mean all that much in his school - except that he takes an extra art class after school on Wednesdays. He's going through kind of an asshole stage - which I suspect is the product of his growing up and trying to test new limits, and also of his having been slightly spoiled from the moment he was born, and so we're trying to talk things out, include him in making new rules and just generally be a little more grown up about things than we have been in the past. This is not easy, and tests both my patience and his as well. He is, without reservation or doubt, the very best thing that has ever happened to me, the very best thing I have ever done or been a part of, and will be, for the rest of the days I have on this earth, the true love of my life. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/lunacee/firstdayofschool.jpg

My wife and I have a 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Juna Ann. Here she is from Halloween:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v131/renart/kitty3.jpg

She's a joy and a constant challenge, like all worthwhile things. Her recent loves are animals, her grandparents, the works of Eric Carle, Babar books, building with those oversized Legos, painting and drawing, and dancing to almost any music I put on. I have an mpeg somewhere of her dancing to Gary Numan's "Cars."

She's been going through a bit of the terrible twos recently, but her contrariness occasionally produces some amusing results. Her step-grandfather told her the other day that she had a frog in her throat because her voice was low due to a cold. She told him indignantly, "No. I have a cricket in my mouth!"

By the way, for the parents of infants, I highly recommend Tana Hoban's "Black on White" and "White on Black" for reading books with them. They are just silhouettes of simple objects, but infants can focus most easily on high contrast pictures. When Juna was very little she loved to look at and point and recognize (I'm pretty sure) the simple pictures of bananas, teddy bears, etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/July-August2005bw049.jpg

(his big round head made charlie brown seem like an obvious choice)

It really is interesting how quickly children grasp the power of "no!"

:-) :-) Please to tell yer lovely lady wife N. hi from me, and that Julian is a treat.

Oh definitely. Especially when our daughter poops and pees just after putting off the dirty diaper. She's done this twice now. I'm used to the peeing - she does it at least once a day when I change diapers - but simultaneously squirting a bit of poopoo made me laugh. I couldn't help it, I just found it so extremely funny.

Recovery from my delivery has been relatively good but I do have some minor problems: pain in my pelvic bone is the worst. It really hinders me in carrying her. It's not impossible, just a bit harder to carry her around. :-( I am starting kine on monday. Hopefully it'll pass.

http://static.flickr.com/26/58195020_77a4078a3a.jpg

(The little angel sensed I was going to gush about her on that internet again last night and so wailed for a good 40min; she always seems doubly cute when she finally settles down...)

Can we talk about raising boys vs raising girls? I'm an only child and I have no experience with little boys. Being a girl is hard but often I think it's harder to be a boy, you're just expected to be so goddamn tough all the time. I'm looking forward to parenting a boy and would love to hear some boy stories.

The main reason I was glad to have a girl was because of the socialization differences Teeny mentions above — "I think it's harder to be a boy, you're just expected to be so goddamn tough all the time." I was not so goddamn tough all the time, and bullied pretty thoroughly especially in high school, and didn't want my child to have to go through that exact experience. (I know adolescent girls have their own claws-out issues, and I've purposefully avoided watching Heathers.) I just thought then, and still think, that it's easier for girls to be imbued with a love of learning than boys, and if there was anywhere my wife and I could give our kid a leg up, it was in education. We weren't going to give it perfect cheekbones and the metabolism of a rabbit, and we weren't going to give it a flawless 18-foot jump shot or 120-mph first serve. I think I had a vague notion in my mind that the gender gap in pay scales would be narrower by the time she started looking for a job, and it is, a little bit, though the emphasis on equal pay for equal work kind of goes by the wayside with so many fucking Republicans and Xtians running things.

But basically, with parents who valued education over most other concerns, it seemed natural to prefer a girl, so I'm glad we got our wish. I don't think I'm writing this with 20/20 hindsight, but you never know.

Interestingly, my distinct uneasiness in 1988 at the prospect of socializing and educating a boy has borne itself out in U.S. society to the point where Newsweek a couple of weeks ago had a cover story about the gender gap in education.

I believe it was good for our marriage and I'm absolutely convinced it was critically important to our daughter's development. She saw no commercial television, therefore no commercials. She was an absolute joy to take shopping because she never "had to have" anything. She also didn't develop any dubious role models from MTV or even cartoon or children's networks.

Our rule was that if she wanted to watch a video, she had to watch the video. No putting a video on and then ignoring it in the background while doing something else. If she got tired of watching, she turned it off. I'm convinced that helped her develop an attention span longer than five minutes.

When she was five, we got TV back, but by then the habits were broken in our case and never set in hers. TV became a treat that she earned by doing chores, etc. Thirty minutes at a time.

She's 17 now, and we never went through any problems with her wanting to grow up too fast. I'm convinced that the best things we did for her - and we did then all by accident or lucky instinct - were:

* No TV for at least five years. Eight is probably better.
* No sodas, tea or other caffeinated drinks. Ever.
* We read to her every single night of her life from the time she was about two months old until she starting reading for herself. We took turns, and usually all three sat together for the reading out loud.

I'm not saying how we raised our kiddo was perfect, nor were we perfect at it. She was a stubborn little cuss, and still is sometimes. She'd argue with a fencepost. But she's never suffered from a cripplingly low self-esteem the way I did, from comparing myself to impossible people all the time, and she never tried to rush her own growing up.

And in my book, that's two gifts you can give your kids that nobody can take from them, ever.

Sorry for burbling on. And please don't take this as boastfulness or ego. It's simply lessons learned that I'd love to share.

but as for boys/girls, my wife really wanted a daughter and was initially disappointed when we found out he was a he. that didn't last long, tho. especially once she realized she could still dress him up in cute outfits (at least until he gets old enough to protest). i had no preference, but i love him to pieces and wouldn't change him in any way. if we have another, it'd be nice to have a girl i guess -- i think it'd be interesting to have one of each. plus having grown up with a sister, i think it's nice for siblings to have the other gender around.

i've heard other people say what rebekkah says, that girls are more work in some ways. it wasn't true in my family, but that's cuz my little brother kind of threw off the curve...

no soda ever. no juice at home--the only time they get that is at birthday parties where I have no control. they drink white milk or water and they are totally happy with it. Juice is nutritionally worthless for the most part--don't be swayed by seeing "100% vitamin C".

Our kids never get dessert if they don't eat all of their dinner. Ever.

i don't know. i'm sure there will be a lot of fights and adjustments along the way. on the one hand, i was always kind of proud of having been raised in a severely tv-restricted environment. on the other hand, i have lots of friends who grew up drenched in television, and it doesn't seem to have hurt them. part of me thinks, he's going to be living in a media-saturated world, might as well get used to it. but then, i also want to control what he takes in, at least to some degree.

Re television: I could watch as much telly as I wanted. Thank god, or else my English would be crap. (I learned the language from watching tons of subtitled films and also BBC.) So I'm not that against television. That said, knowing what I sometimes as a kid (hardcore porn,...), I'll try to keep her away from the bad stuff. ;-)

this is pretty much what we did. I still like to hover around while he watches, which is strictly limited, mostly to answer questions.

TV: I grew up in a limited access household--b&w broadcast channels from maybe age 4 onward, got cable around age 9, never a big tv addict--and would really like to throw the box out now that the kid's around. I say that but I don't know if it's really true because my husband likes tv so much I'm not going to have the choice. And of course I watch a ton of TV during the day because it's nice to have background noise and it's hard to do anything else and nurse at the same time. We're setting up our house with a tiny tv room and a big family room though, with places to play and read--I think this is good, keep the tv away from gathering areas. I'm glad we have Tivo to restrict access and cut out commercials when the time comes to introduce the kid to tv. And I do have fond memories of watching the twilight zone and Cosmos with my dad, there's good things about tv too.

Sending her to nursery makes us unhappy. She doesn't seem to mind, but we do. I don't think it will make her sociable, she is only 10 months old and takes no notice of the other kids (something I secretly find admirable). Plus she is always ill. If she carries on like this she will grow up to be like Morrissey. Before nursery she was vigorous and strong, a state she reverts to at weekends.

Photo:

ihttp://www.flickr.com/photos/25214957@N00/91393888/

http://static.flickr.com/19/91397533_c063cc53f3.jpg

xpost!

We have the telly on a lot and Ava seems less interested now that packing boxes prevent her from licking/slapping the screen. We haven't thought so far ahead as to imagine what damage we may be doing to her with TV. She dances to all the adverts and I'm not taking that away from her.

I'm very weary of banning a TV (or any other media). You have to educate a person (child or adult) on how to watch television. The box is not evil, it's how you handle it. This is of course easier said than done, but I am not anti-TV (nor internet) at all.

And, yes, that's how I see it as well, Teeny: you can't spoil a baby. From six months onwards they do start to make connections and then I'll try to make sure she doesn't see the connection. I don't want a spoilt child but I don't want an unloved baby either. :-) I realize that dependency can be a problem: as a child I was very dependant on my mom and they really had to cut the umbilical cord later on: I would go absolutely mental if my mom left me alone (with my dad or anyone else). When I was about three, my dad told my mom to leave so he could cut the cord. It was painful but very necessary. :-)

Incidentally, Michael, you might want to have a word with Edith because she applauded Chelsea's goal the other day. Obviously she didn't get any encouragement from me.

ihttp://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=91393888&size=m

Just wanted to clarify. I guess I came on a little strong because this is something I feel strongly about, but I'm not totally anti-TV. Truth is, I'm anti-commercials. That's where the worst damage is done. That's where our children are brainwashed into becoming mindless consumers and also fed frustratingly damaging images of what and how they "should" be and "should" want. As adorable as the image of a cute kiddo dancing to commercials is, you have to ask yourself what the child is internalizing.

Ask a TV-watching child to quote ads to you sometime, and prepare to be alarmed. Hell, it happened to us, too. I can still remember commercial jingles from the 1960s when I can't begin to haul up the Preamble to the Constitution any more.

And this isn't accidental. That's what commercials are for. They're *made* to do that, and they do it very effectively. If our boys think it's the coolest thing to be sullen dullard skate punks, where are they getting that image? If our girls think they need to be sleek amd made-up and sexy at age nine, where are they getting that idea? From us?

Television programs are sometimes nearly as bad, but the commercials are the real problem. And in case you think I'm just a ranting old lady, I used to teach advertising writing at the university level. Eventually, my soul couldn't take it any more.

Anyway, TiVo, from what I understand, can take the commercial problem away, which is awesome. Once we allowed our daughter and ourselves to start watching TV again, she wasn't allowed to watch Saturday morning TV at all. Or any commercial television aimed specifically at children. That crap exists ONLY to create desire and promote consumerism.

Buy or rent videotapes or DVDs instead.

Oh god, I've ranted again. Let me just crawl off into a corner and shut the hell up.

ditto. babies need to be held. plus, they're so much fun to hold. to me, spoiling a kid is refusing to set limits (on toys, food, tv, whatever). i don't think anyone's ever been spoiled by an excess of hugging.

At 11 months? Beyond "this has got a good beat"? But, yes, I fear she may have already made up her mind about which home contents insurance provider to patronise and which loo roll is the softest. Fortunately, British commercial breaks are full of plain-looking people struggling to secure loans on bad credit, so, in terms of aspirational images...er, yes I see your point.

And yes, we did watch ST:TNG. *grin* Which is probably the entire reason why the kiddo is a geek.

My wife was raised like your husband Teeny. And she's pretty brilliant as well. But I think in the long run you want to play the odds and assume that not everyone will be as lucky as our spouses are. Not to mention that sound eating habits have obvious rewards.

Here's Bill, he's two. His favourite thing ever is Thomas the Tank Engine. Also loves drawing, squirrels, Postman Pat and walking like a robot.

Almost 2, waiting for his little brother or sister to arrive (sometime this week), with his bunny, named "Money." Faves: balloons, "bidee-roes", and trains incl. Thomas.

I am shocked at my new appetite for baby pictures.

Edith was only brestfed for about two days (two very hungry days) and she is a fine strapping lass. Swings and roundabouts, I'd say. I'm not very keen on sterilising, but that's all.

I think you can mix and match.

Did anyone watch that programme about breastfeeding last night? Corking stuff - like a series of Little Britain sketches.

Most important thing Natalie (my wife tells me) - don't feel guilty - a few months down the line you'll be thinking "why did i let this get to me!?".

My parent profile - two children Louis, 8 and Mae, 4. Mae has just started school, which in my humble opinion is a little too early because I miss her! I stayed home and looked after the kids purely because financially it seemed the most sensible way, my wife has always earned a lot more than me. I do a few hours paid work a week now.

I don't know if I have much advice. You get so much advice from everyone that you wind up beating yourself up over whether you're doing the right thing. Having said that I find that If the kids are happy, you will be happy. And vice versa. And one way to stay happy is to get as much sleep as possible. This was one of the most difficult things for us, and it seems cruel going through the process of getting them to sleep through but I think it's worth it for everyone.

Anyway, here's a picture of Mae as an angel at her playgroup's xmas do.
http://static.flickr.com/34/72507088_9134fdc0f0.jpg

In one word: ARGH.

But, hey, one look at Ophelia and I melt.

no problem about the h. :-)

Don't worry about this; milk proteins and lactose don't work this way, as you will digest them first. Other things can pass into your milk untouched because they are absorbed directly into your bloodstream - alcohol, the volatile oils from garlic and onions.

It can work well to express your milk and bottle feed, and to nurse the baby when possible - I did it for months. Freeze your milk as soon as possible to preserve the enzymes and warm it under warm, not hot, running water. It is important to nurse the baby as often as you can (I was able to once in the morning and two-three times in the evenings), otherwise your milk will eventually dwindle.

Even though I nursed my son, he was a projectile vomiter. It was just the way he was (apparently, I was too). He eventually grew out of it, though it was frustrating all the time it happened. As long as the baby is filling her diapers and gaining weight, she's doing fine, regardless of spit-ups and burps.

congrats, Raymond!

Make sure you're drinking enough water--that could be the source of your headaches. And if you think it could be dairy in your diet causing trouble, cut it out for a couple of weeks and see what happens. I have actually read that milk is the most common allergen, so my information conflicts with yours, Jaq. Here's an article:
http://lalecheleague.org/NB/NBJulAug98p100.html

wow, I can't believe you're even doing half-days so soon! I'm working a little next week and even that's tough. Child care is a pain to arrange when you work weird hours.

He converted to cow milk around a year. Despite my concern that "milk is for cows," and general lack of enthusiasm for him eating much dairy, he is apparently a two-legged, blue-eyed holstein, he loooooves milk, cottage cheese, mozzarella and yogurt. For a while, he didn't want to eat anything without yogurt mixed with it, or mozzarella melted onto it.

What do you guys do when a toddler will only eat a VERY limited number of foods, and snubs the rest despite your served menu?

re: the breastfeeding and vomiting -- i think that's another one of those "no universal answer" issues. our kid actually had more spit-ups on formula than breastmilk, which is one reason we were sorry when the breastfeeding tapered off. and hiccups and gas and whatnot just come with the territory. our experience was that those things got a lot better after 6 months. now we're down to just the very occasional vomit, usually when we give him too much or if he has some food he's never had before. but also, don't be intimidated by the breastfeeding purists. what bugs me most is when people act like any one way of doing things (breastfeeding/formula, sleeping in the bed/out of the bed, tv/no tv) is the only way to do it. everyone's gonna have opinions, i try to pay attention to them but i also try to pay most attention to what seems to work for him and us.

in other news...Z is right on the verge of actual walking! every day he can go a little farther before he plops down, and his balance is getting better and better. i suppose within a few weeks it'll mostly supplant the crawling. which is a little too bad, because he's really cute when he crawls. but he's pretty hilarious to watch walking too. one more milestone about to fall...

Somebody please explain this to me.

Also, there was a article in the Wash Post today about some low-performing elementary school in Alexandria that is pulling itself up by its bootstraps and doing better and better on the VA Standards of Learning (SOL) tests so that it will no longer be labeled a low performing school and wealthy parents will no longer pull their kids out of it in search of better schools. There was a picture of a first grader taking a reading test and he was looking at the sheet of paper with long words printing in a small font. Shouldn't these kids be reading picture books, still? I have these teaching pangs now and again but then I read an article like this and I think, no way I good teach in that kind of school system.

Apparently there's two basic components of breastmilk. At any one feed, when your baby starts off, she mainly gets the watery foremilk, which is high in antibodies and boosts the baby's immune system, but is actually a little hard for them to digest. After a while of feeding, the hindmilk starts coming through, which is much richer and high in fat and what your baby needs to put on weight, but it also helps to calm the baby's digestion.

If your baby is feeding frequently, say every hour or so, and you keep changing breasts, she will mainly be getting the foremilk, and this will cause colic (burping, discomfort, vomiting). What you need to try and do is space feeds more, but have the baby take in more at any one feed so she gets more of the soothing fatty hindmilk.

To do this, you'll need to keep herawake by rubbing her cheeks and gently squeezing her feet, things like that. Obviously, intake is limited by the size of the baby's stomach, so if they're too small to drink very much in one go, put them back on the same breast for the next feed instead of alternating (hope you're not too sore!), then switch the next time round.

Make sure you wind thoroughly afterwards and help the baby relax by holding her resting on her stomach, like on your forearm or thigh. And don't worry too much - I think everyone gets problems with this.

Viewers, that is.

Tits, eh?

Hunter, this is exactly the problem we're having. Bill's only really interested in eating cheese, cereal, yoghurt and birthday cake, and only the odd bit of fruit and veg. Seems to have got worse as he's got older too. Still too young to reason with and doesn't quite understand how bribery works either, grr dammit! He's also recently had that phase of tipping his plate upside down on top of his head (I must admit though, it's hard not to laugh when this happens)

It's immensely frustrating but we're *trying* to manage it (correctly or not) firstly by not making him special meals, cos it only compounds the frustration when he refuses food we've cooked him especially. So we just give him whatever we're having, and if he doesn't like it all that much, err well, that's just tough (God, I feel like a mean dad sometimes). We try not to offer him alternatives, and if he doesn't eat his food, he doesn't get any pudding. Unfortunately, I'm afraid we're pitifully weak when it comes to executing this plan, so we've had mixed results. However, we do manage to sneak healthy stuff into smoothies and soups by blending it up small (but don't tell him that!).

Would be very interested to hear how other folks handle this.

Pink Panther - your baby looks so blissed out there!

She has not reached toddler status yet though.

You are not a short order cook. Kids can live a long time without food. Which isn't to say starve them, but you MUST build good eating habits early. They all go through testing phases, but a good rule of thumb is that they don't know whether or not they really like it until they've tried it at least 8 times. You just have to be really patient and dilligent, especially around 18 months when they really start testing their wits against you. You have the right idea, just follow through with it. IT SUCKS, yes, but it will work out much better in the end.

For a long time, we had what I liked to call "prison dessert" at our house. When my kids were about 2, if they wouldn't eat the main course they would get "prison dessert", which was, of course, a piece of whole wheat bread and a water chaser. I did this for six months thinking it would be motivation but after awhile, they would just look at the entree and yell, "I want prison dessert." The whole experiment ended when they said this at a restaurant, and a bunch of shocked people heard it. After that, my wife declared that they would be eating what's on their plate or they would eat nothing. A night or two of going to bed hungry and screaming, and they were on the program.

One thing you can try is ask your kids to help you with the menu. Tell them if they do a good job eating then they can pick the next night's meal or elements of the meal or help plan the week or whatever.

Also, if there are certain meals that they eat well (hopefully breakfast!) then make sure they load up on a variety of foods at that sitting. Some kids (and people!) are hungrier at different times of the day, or sometimes they're in a better (willing) mood at different times of day. Capitalize on those times to put variety into the menu.

The headlock trick doesn't work but I have tried that.

Nathalie: hope it made some sort of sense!

I used to love blood-sausages until I asked my dad what it was made of. Yes, I was an idiot. I mean blood sausages, did I even need to ask? Of course. My dad replied:"Pig's blood of course." I had the fork halfway between my mouth and my plate. It never reached my mouth. I decided I hated blood-sausages as much as I had once liked them. Namely a lot.

I'm wondering if other parents here would like to share their "tricks" for encouraging good behavior. My daughter was refusing to brush her teeth for a while, so I started saying, "I wonder if toothpaste will turn your teeth purple and sparkly?" and then she got really excited to find out. And even when she sees there's no change, she gets to laugh at papa for thinking such crazy thoughts. Usually she just forgets about it because once she starts brushing, she likes it.

I've done a similar thing with clipping her nails, which she doesn't like. I tell her that if we clip her nails we can go into the backyard and plant the clippings to see if a fingernail tree will grow, and then it becomes no problem. I'm careful never to promise that such a tree will grow, but use the language of an experiment. So far it's worked wonders, and if anybody else has any such tricks, I'd be happy to hear them.

Oh, I suppose they'll just cross reference it with this now. No more Time Team.

Much better than what my friends had to endure: their room turned into a veritable prison cell after they had been caught stealing. Their mom decided they needed to serve time. Their room was unheated in the middle of winter (with a broken window) and they got water and bread for food. It was pushed into the room on a plate. :-(

Seeing abuse didn't fuck me up like my friends obviously did, but god damn it made me very sad to see my friends treated that way.

We're trying to feed him organic food as much as possible, and have pretty much banned anything with high-fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils from our household.

hahah!

pink for a second I thought you were going to show us pictures of something else up there.

This is just making me think of "WHERE'S! MY! HASENPFEFFER!?!?"

and actually, there's a great selfish payoff to this: it's easier to deal with kids when they will eat anything. As they grow older, meals can be a great source of tension, especially when the afternoon nap is cut off because your kids are tired from a long day and don't have the patience to choke down that new recipe you're trying.

I might add that the difference in nutrition in high-fructose corn syrup and regular fructose is not much, so unless you're using fructose as a delivery system for other nutrients, orange juice is not a whole lot better than 16 oz of Sprite.

but even canned OJ has vitamin C, no?

haha, no! Given the course of the thread then I thought ladies were going to start baring their baby accessories.

i want a baby now!

Any tips for dealing with teething, oh parental gurus?

PJ Miller, I saw some rubber stick (or whatever you call it) for teething. I don't know how or if it works though.

I will now pass you over to the person who left the packet of peas open in the freezer, she has something she wants to say to you all:

Come along, dear, you're on...

It's not my fault. The probability of Peter going to the fridge to get some frozen peas is less than zero, therefore leaving an open bag of peas is really safe in this house. Next time you think of giving Peter some advice involving the manipulation of liquids or anything droppable, bear in mind that he is very, VERY clumsy and he'll certainly drop it. So please, think twice next time.

Z is increasingly interested in feeding himself, which is on balance a good thing but oh the mess. yesterday he managed to spoon about two gulps of chicken-broccoli casserole into his mouth before dropping the spoon and going straight in with his hands. i kept popping spoonfuls in myself in between his fistfuls, and somehow it all added up to him actually eating a meal, but it required extensive cleanup efforts afterward -- of him, me, my wife, the chair, the bib, the floor...

Seriously.

What?

*is chased into bonfire*

Today we're moving house (I'm typing this on the laptop in the bathroom). Yesterday we did a solid 17-hr packing and cleaning frenzy (we told ourselves when we went to bed on Saturday night that we were 98% of the way there; quite a last 2%); crashed out on the futon in the living room at 1am. At 3:15 Ava starts screaming; she hadn't had a really bad teething night for a couple of weeks but on this occasion she keeps going until 4:30 or so.

Our alarm goes off at 6:30 (we expect the movers at 7:45 and have a load of stuff to do before they arrive). They actually get here at 8:50 (but we're still not quite ready). Our babysitter* is running late and arrives at 11:00, so that's four hours of almost continuously holding the babe (nowhere to sit, nowhere for her to safely run about). I ache all over. Ava has been very high-maintenance; joyous in her own way but incredibly LOUD.

(* - first time we've ever had one; it's one of the neighbourhood mums)

Final box count is 195. Looking round these emptying rooms I realise what we're giving up. New place better be as good as I remember.

Ava is being taken to watch a local U-15s rugby match with Ruby. The mind boggles.

I managed to let my husband sleep for eight hours straight this night. Hurrah! I'm happy for him. He definitely needed it. I do too, but hey I have breastfeeding to do.

I bought a breastpump today. They should have told me I need a machine to sterilize (?) the stuff. Also a machine to warm up the milk. I'm beginning to understand why breastfeeding is so easy; but then I needed the pump because I can't keep breastfeeding forever. :-(

http://static.flickr.com/11/96251660_01966e66a2.jpg

Did you survive the move, Michael?

(I expect an answer in six weeks or so.)

how is the diaper rash nathalie? are you using any ointment to treat it? I find that I have to use some ointment every time I change a diaper just to prevent diaper rash. I don't know the brand names in europe but there are a few kinds here, Desitin (with zinc oxide and cod fish oil) is probably most effective at getting rid of it but it is so stinky that I don't use it unless he actually has a rash. I usually use vitamin A&D ointment to put a layer of grease between his rump and the diaper (and of course I'm changing as soon as possible after the diaper gets wet). He never seemed much bothered by a bit of diaper rash but he never had a bad case.

In a month or so, maybe sooner, you'll get your first smiles from your girl and it'll be so nice!

Recent developmental leaps for my boy (two months old on thursday): Found his fist, can consistently bring it to his mouth to suck, holding his head up reasonably well if he tries, can take a rattle from my hand and shake it!

It's not that severe. We use iosine (or sth like that) which is CRAP as it leaves red stains. Grrr. On top of that we use Daktazin. Zinc cream isn't enough.

We, Ophelia and I, went to Kind&Gezin today: She's now 57 cm and well over 4 kilo 500 grams! She's in the 10 percent bracket! She's doing pretty well actually. She already follows us: watches us move from one side to the next. She also hold her head up pretty well. Sadly she also sucks her finger if she's hungry. Some days are pretty good: no crying and waking up every two hours for a good feed, but other days she howls like tomorrow (and milk) will never come. :-)

From tomorrow I'll try start pumping milk. It's quite complex: not as easy as getting yer tit out. hah! But it'll be necessary in a few weeks when the shop will (hopefully) get busier.

xpost

I could just kill my brother in law sometimes the way he is screwing up my nephew's head. He's been trying to reason with the child since he was a baby, and he's such a pushover that as soon as the boy starts crying from being caught and punished, bro-in-law is immediately picking him up and hugging and comforting him, "Aw, it's okay, you just did a bad thing, it's okay, don't cry." Does he not realize what's coming out of his mouth? YOU DID SOMETHING BAD = IT'S OKAY.

if he pinches until you yell, the time to grab his hand and calmly and coolly say "Don't you EVER pinch me again. Don't you ever pinch ANYONE again" is before it hurts. He's testing his limits, and the limit for hurting, breaking and teasing needs to be zero, not when somebody starts crying.

yes, and that's how he's treated. unfortunately, he doesn't stop. that's the $64k question, really - why?

Sad to say it, but if all the charts and steps and stuff just aren't working then maybe it's just time to put him in his room alone for five minutes and let him break his own stuff. A five-year-old will wise up real quick if he actually has to suffer the same punishments he's inflicted on others.

Here's the beginning of his current column:

Children should pay attention to parents

John Rosemond

02/16/2006 - By the time a child is 3 years old, he has come to one of two conclusions concerning his parents:

Conclusion One: It's my job to pay attention to my parents.

Conclusion Two: It's my parents' job to pay attention to me.

A 3-year-old who reaches Conclusion One can be successfully disciplined. Furthermore, his discipline will be relatively easy. A child who reaches Conclusion Two can be neither successfully nor easily disciplined. This is so because the discipline of a child rests primarily on whether or not he is paying attention to his parents, and it is a fact that a child will not pay sufficient attention to parents who are acting like it is their job to pay as much attention as they can to him.

The child who reaches Conclusion Two has acquired, by age 3, an attention deficit. Not attention deficit disorder, mind you, because there's nothing at all wrong with him. Nonetheless, there will definitely be disorder in the house. His parents will say things like "he doesn't listen to us," "we have to yell to get his attention," and "we have to get right up in his face before he does what we're telling him to do." Yep, he has an attention deficit all right, but not one caused by a chemical imbalance or some malfunction in his brain. This attention deficit was caused by well-meaning parents who think good parents pay as much attention as they can to their kids; that the more attention one pays ones child, the better a parent one is. That is, after all, the prevailing belief, and it has prevailed since the late 1960s, when the newly emerging professional parenting class—people like me, with capital letters after their names—claimed that a child's psychological health was a function of how much positive attention he received from his parents.

It's cardboard city (195 was an underestimate; we've found two boxes labelled K35, a few unnumbered and unlisted and then there were the unlidded last-minute krazy-kram krates). The gas fire works. Previous occupants left stone figurines, framed photos of kittens, a wrapped bar of Imperial Leather on the bath and - shudder - a tupperware container of mealworms to feed the visiting robins. We love the place but need to rework every room. By the summer it will be a home.

Getting back on topic, Ava loved her tag-team kiddie-minding trip with Suzanne and Maria (and Josh and Luke and Ruby and all the other rugby-crazy babes), coming back with rosy cheeks and sleeping like a rock from 7:30. This morning I was appallingly hungover (two pints of Stella on a mostly empty stomach) and probably not best placed to judge Ava's rambunctious reaction to her new surroundings. A mushroom omelette and a pot of Earl Grey later, and I could see that she was loving it. There are mirrors everywhere (some left here, some ours, yet to be hung and so at ground-level) and Ava can't contain her joy at that. Difficult to get her to bed but she's down now with a convection heater in her room hastily rigged up to a timer. Hope she sleeps the night through.

The crappest baby-related thing about the move was defrosting the fridge on Sunday morning and hence having to chuck a whole host of ziploc-bagged food. (We left it outside on the bathroom windowsill but forecasts of -2C overnight were unfounded). For the first time in her life Ava's eating out of shop-bought jars (decent organic stuff from Planta, but still). If we'd known our vendors were going to leave a chest freezer (plugged in and operational) in the outhouse we could've saved days of home cookin'...

Pam is so fatigued she's got ill and is sleeping through a chair design docu on TV. If only we could find the VCR... Oh dear, Yentob's just got his kit off. Scratch that.

Well done Mike and Pam and Ava. I am thinking of Mirror World in The Mighty Boosh.

I am going to work on Edith realising it's her job to pay attention to me. Well, I suppose I am already working on it, as I often balance cuddly toys on my head for a laugh.

Hey, I have just checked and England didn't even qualify in 1978! All along my dad has led me to believe that he wasn't at my birth because he had to watch a tense England match! Bah.

Because they kept saying, "Peru, Peru".

SO JUST WHAT WAS YOUR DAD DOING THEN, EH?

Trust me, the first few days and even weeks will be hard, but after that it really does get a lot easier. If you can't cope, get some painkillers and/or cream. I did and it made it a lot easier. The funny thing with my breasts: the right one is still struggling a little - Ophelia attacks it baracuda style - and during the night they get massive. You can prepare your breasts before your baby's born: try drying your nipples off with a *hard* towel for example.

Don't freak out when your baby vomits a bit of bloody milk, it doesn't harm her/him at all. :-)

What made it easier for me: I tried pumping milk twice. The midwives frothed at the mouth but I wanted to try it. I just wanted to have the choice. It was as if I wasn't allowed, as though *I* was the kid.

And, of course, congratulations!

The breastpumping is not as easy as I figured. First time it went excellent, this morning no milk at all. BOO. I'll need to pump when my breasts are at its fullest,namely at night.

I was going to write last night that the Miller/Edith pic almost made me blub but I feel much more robust this morning after a stroll up the hill, so none of that nonsense.

Thanks for your words of congratulation on the house move. Of course, the hard work starts now - how to strip wallpaper, fit hardwood flooring, replumb the bathroom, install central heating and generally decorate with a one-year-old running amok? It seems like we might be shelling out for some burly men to do most of it for us, which wasn't the plan. Another reason why I wish we'd moved when we were supposed to (Sept/Oct) - Ava wasn't as mobile.

She's not sleeping quite as well and (inevitably, having had the briefest of contact with another child) she's ill again - bad nappy rash and chesty cough. I think this is something that we all just have to endure - from 6 months on they stumble from one variant of the cold virus to another like they're trying to collect the whole set.

And God, she is loud thesedays. I presume she's just testing her voice but I really should dig out the SPL meter and see what she can manage. Really explosive shrieks.

Edith is getting louder too, and she hauls herself up in her cot, the better to scream.

Gah, today I'm feeling tired and I also have a terrible headache. :-(

Now I need some advice, any ideas will help even if your kids are a lot younger. My nine-year-old's eating habits are atrocious. We sit down at the dinner table every night, and both my husbad and I have reasonably good table manners. It has taken forever to pound into her brain that she needs to put her napkin in her lap, not talk with food in her mouth, chew with her mouth closed, etc... We usually have to remind her about these things once a night. But that's okay, I realize she's a kid and the habits will be learned eventually (even if it's taking years and years). The problem is that if we're eating a dish that she really likes, she eats like she's never had food before. She shovels it into her mouth and barely stops to chew. It's disgusting to watch and she usually reverts back to the shoveling a few minutes after I've told her to slow down. And then when we have community snacks, she does the same thing and acts very selfishly. Like we had a bowl of popcorn last night and she kept grabbing handfulls and handfulls and shoving them into her face, she was kind of bent over the bowl and guarding it, too. I told her to only take a little at a time THREE TIMES before my husband blew up and sent her to her room. I don't understand where this is coming from with her. I'm not selfish about food, sometimes when we go out for breakfast I eat only half of mine because I've given up most of my meats to the kids. And she's always had plenty, we're fairly well-off and there has never been the threat of no food. She's not overweight, either. This only happens when it's a food she really likes. I don't think this is a problem she needs to go to therapy for, or anything, but I'm looking for ideas on how to get her to realize what she's doing and to slow it down.

Rebekkah - can you covertly video her? Granted, a 9 year old isn't too concerned with appearances, but seeing herself might trigger something. We used a "fork down" rule (utensils are put down between bites) and the "this is soooooo good, I'm going to make it last" strategy, by example and when our kids were very young. The second can have the negative repercussion of never getting to leave the table because someone is really stretching out their cheesecake with the tiniest of nibbles.

I agree. I don't want to discourage her eating at all. Especially since she's not overweight and she's very active. She needs all that energy and food. But she also needs to chew between bites and stop for air sometimes. I'm going to try the fork down method you suggested. Maybe after a few months she'll have learned how much better it is to enjoy the food you love.

http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/6043/02080009pshop4x68bk.jpg

My biggest fear with the 2 year old is that he will throw something at her while she sleeps in her chair.

We've got a new baby coming in September, hopefully a wee sister for these two.

http://static.flickr.com/21/24709235_b3a6a5aa81.jpg

So three little Onimos, that's enough to do Faith-era Cure and all.

ROFL!

Onimo, congratulations (on having sex and getting her pregnant)!

Today Ophelia had her hearing test. The cutest little headphones you EVAH saw. I couldn't take a picture as I had to keep her in my arms. Her hearing is fine. Only she has really bad acne, which should disappear in a few weeks. BUt it looks as bad as mine did when I was 14 yrs old. ;-) The woman also said that I should try to stretch nightly feedings. *shrug* I don't really want to push her just yet. As long as she doesn't cry, I don't really mind getting up every two hours. It's just when she cries that I worry and become grumpy in the morning. :-)

If you don't take a picture of them, made up as the front cover of Pornography, I am never speaking to you again.

Onimo's house, later this year:
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000261EG.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

(note to self: googling "pornography" = not a good idea)

http://static.flickr.com/34/95772449_c8274aaf61.jpg?v=0

Nathalie, that is one cute kid.

breakfast:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/11_11_0002.jpg

re my baby: thanks for the kind words. she didnt get the cuteness from me, that's for sure! :-)

I bought a bunch of burt's bees diaper ointment (factory seconds are on sale from the website) and it's great, works as well as anything I've tried and has a lovely rosemary smell, it's like cuddling up to roasted potatoes.

I am trying to evaluate diapers and see which brands work best, some of my friends prefer pampers over huggies, some others say that wal-mart's brand is the only generic brand worth anything. Right now I'm just buying whatever I have a coupon for. Any thoughts from the ile parenting massive?

Sterling had his first fever last night, and he really DID seem way too hot--he wasn't cranky or anything, just 102.9. Our book said "brains only get fried around 107; if he's hot but is acting like himself, don't worry about it." Today, of course, he was totally cranky, because he'd barely slept. He's currently been napping for 3 1/2 hours...

It's her 1st birthday today!

But yay happy birthday Ava :)

She weight about 4780 grams.

Oops she just sneezed, gotta run!

Belated happy birthday to Ava - hope you all enjoyed yourselves.

I know lots of people who rocked their kids to sleep until their kids were almost two years old! At some point, babies need to learn to comfort themselves and go to sleep on their own. Trust me, you want to make going to bed very much habitual and very much self-reliant.

the bum things is that your babe (and mine, whose a week or so older than yours) is very much near the age when sleeping rituals can and should be established i.e. regular sleep times. We have been very, very lax on with our third and it is biting us in the ass. I have decided that next week we will begin naps at regularly scheduled times. She's ready and currently catnapping her way through the day, which is driving me fooking crazy.

I can't see well enough to read the thread again but has no-one mentioned how bloody hard it is to raise children? How sleeping becomes like some weird indulgence that you wonder if you're even entitled to?

Apologies for the negative energy in a WOOHOO KIDS thread but it is difficult, huge, and frightening isn't it?

I'm more than a bit scared. I'll be 35 by the time my next (3rd) child is born, If s/he decides to stay on at school & go on to higher education etc I may end up with a child at home when I'm close to 60. That's some serious time to commit to some else's life, isnt' it? Since my 1st son was born that adds up to around 32 years of being an 'active' parent.

It's easy to say "I'm not complaining" and that the rewards outweigh the sacrifices but when you seriously consider the magnitude of raising a child it's fucking huge.

The rewards really ARE amazing and I truly, honestly wouldn't change a thing about the life we have, but wouldn't it be nice to have 5 minutes to worry about yourself?

< / drunken selfishness >

I should point out that we really, really wanted another baby and that I'm over the moon about it. I'm just worried about how we'll cope. It's not really about not getting to go to the pub, more about how that ceases to even be an option.

I should stop typing.

The welfare of my children weighs heavily on my shoulders. I often think I'm not carved from the 'good parent' mould but I tell myself most people must feel the same way.

I can't remember what my point was going to be but I think it was something to do with how it's not all about "look at teh cute kidxorz!"

http://static.flickr.com/22/34603526_1add7f0ac6.jpg?v=0

It is so nice to have Edith back to normal after her various minor illnesses. Long may it last.

Sleep routine is good, but it all tends to fall apart at the slightest interruption, such as minor illness or visiting grandparents (they must rock), and then it's back to square one. What can you do? They want rocking and you can rock them, so you rock them.

Ha ha, until you give up and go downstairs in a huff, who am I kidding?

Dude, keep in mind that in the beginning you can not spoil a baby. I think up until six months a baby can't be spoiled. So let Teeny rock her cute baby. :-)

A couple of weeks ago, we decided: let's try a few nights of you-gotta-do-it-on-your-own-kid. So now we put him in pajamas, read him a story, sing him a song, give him a kiss, set him in his crib, turn out the light and walk out. First night: 20 minutes of screaming, which rent our brains asunder! Second night: 25 minutes of yowling, after which we came into his room and he was asleep sitting up with his arms and legs through the bars of the crib, breaking our hearts! Third night: 20 minutes of screeching, which made us feel like the worst parents in the world! Fourth night and thereafter: maybe 30 seconds of yelping, and then zzz. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, we still bring him into our bed; as long as he's nursing, that makes sense.

Libraries: Portland's library system is awesome. Two weeks after he was born, we got a package from Multnomah County Library: a board-book copy of "Goodnight Moon," as a present from the library system, and an application for his first library card. I want to start taking him to baby-book-time every week.

All of you with infants have read "The Happiest Baby on the Block" and have your Velcro swaddling blankets and/or tight-swaddling technique down, right? It really, really, REALLY works.

It ain't easy.

D, that's interesting. I've read about libraries that sound out these emerging literacy carepackets to newborns, but this is the first time I've heard about it actually happening. Do they have a baby lapsit program? Our library waits till they are 1 for the "Little One-Ders" Story Time.

but, you know, i probably rock our kid to sleep once or twice a week. i guess it's indulgent, but the thing is i like it too. it's a very satisfying, protective feeling. and i figure there's some finite number of times i'll be able to rock him to sleep, so i might as well enjoy it while i can. i doubt it's doing anyone any harm.

This is very true - I completely adore all the neighbourhood babies to the extent of knowing their names and not their parents', knowing their foibles and illnesses and oddities but not knowing their parents' professions. We went to a joint 1st-birthday party yesterday for Ava and Finlay and I was completely in my element; rather than talk to the adults about property prices or holidays I was scrabbling about on the floor with Ruby, Dominick, Harry, Calum et al. An occasion like this does rather bring home the fact that Ava is a tiny creature; she's one of only two girls in her peer group and is one of the younger ones (the age range of this crowd is 10-15 months) but still she seems like a real shortarse. Not surprising given her parents are five-three and five-six but we should probably check her on the chart sometime (it's been months since we did a length [or, now, height] measurement).

Compared to her chums, Ava is more likely to wander off independently into another room (some of them aren't walking), more likely to examine an object in great, exhaustive detail before chucking it on the floor, but less likely (indeed, just not yet able) to stack blocks or put things inside other things in a constructive way. Ruby is the star of the bunch - she moves like a dancer and is the most articulate babbler. Dom is the sweetest, shyest boy; he reminds me of PJM's Edith in her mellow moments.

When's the next party?

Same kid

and his brother

Tucker again. That's what leaving them at the beach for a few years will do.

Nigel again. In all the current photos I have of him he's either giving the finger, smoking a joint, or wrapped around a blonde. Sigh.

the head control makes him look like such a little man.

Joel

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/han.jpg

Hannah

Then they start talking and it's all "Poo" and "Teletubbies".

Lo, I would assume the Downs your baby might have, isn't that heavy (or however you would say it) because otherwise they would have noticed it at birth, no?

God, sleep deprivation has made my English CRAP. :-(

Latest illness: bacterial conjunctivitis.

BUT...

Today is Edith's last day at the nursery. Hooray!

Apparently she hides her food under the table in the hope that they will think she's eaten it. I think this is remarkable in an 11 month old baby. I hope she grows up to be a successful con artist and launders some money my way. (Note, this is quite a step-up from my previous ambition for her: chimney sweep.)

I'm not sure I should be, but I am.

A birthday outfit for a Feb 14 baby:

http://static.flickr.com/19/100963310_120159f3d9.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y161/MarkGrout/AAGuitrock.jpg
Amber and Alice, Feb 26th 2006

Mark, I hope my Ophelia will be as coolio as yours!!!

http://static.flickr.com/38/103358156_c77ef4b837.jpg?v=0

My little icebear! :-)

*sigh* I think in part this is why my parents are so great. They learned what not to do. They are the bestest parents I could have wanted. Maybe a bit too perfect.

ANYWAY, Beth, you have such cute sons. Post more pics!

Oh okay, twist my arm. Nigel, the still-huggable one.

See! Still a hugger! He came home after one semester of college in California because he missed this gf so much. Then they split up, but natch.

Another of Tucker at Joshua tree.

my sister went through a period of worrying about this shortly after she became a mom. she was like, 'all my friends hate their parents! i don't want my son to hate me!'

i told her, look, if he makes it to adulthood alive and capable of taking care of himself, you've done your job. anything beyond that is a bonus. sometimes it helps to take a biological perspective.

Happy the lorikeets are pooping on something/someone else.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v240/lunacee/pettingsharks.jpg

Petting the sharks.

There must be a scouse joke in here somewhere.

Maybe: imagine Ray Stubbs saying it?

Ugh Maria, I feel for you. I remember when my son went through a bout of sickness that included lots of vomiting and vile disgustingness I don't like to talk about. I ended up taking him to the ER because he couldn't keep any liquid inside and I could see him getting dehydrated and I needed help. Yeah, I know doctors are smart and they've been through tons of school and stuff, but sometimes I wish they would give moms credit for knowing SOMETHING. They didn't think he was dehydrated and decided to take a urine sample to see what was making him sick. It was so bad, I wanted to strangle the doctor. In the end I got very mean and told her that I said he was dehydrated and I meant it and if he's dehydrated he's not going to have any urine and she could take that little tube out of my screaming boy right now, thank you very much. They ended up giving us a prescription for an anal suppository (another vile thought) and sent us on our way. That little butt pill worked wonders.

Being a mom is so great. Thanks for letting me share.

me at 7 months and my boy at 3 months.

Teeny, we thought Cyrus was teething at very young (drooling, gumming things like crazy). He just cut his first two teeth a week or so ago. He's 9 months old. We thought those teeth were going to pop out any time, but it took a long time.

and thanks alison for that post, not to open a can of worms but going through pregnancy and childbirth and motherhood has made me a lot more pro-choice than I used to be but also a lot more mooshy about babies and fetuses and stuff. I think it's said so often that babies change your life that it's lost its meaning. Making the decision to have a kid means that my body will never be the same, my brain will never be the same, I've lost a good portion of my economic independence that I've worked so hard to get. And I'm a healthy, married, college-educated, white American 30-year old, I have everything going for me.

happy b-day to sterling. a year is quite an accomplishment, when it's the only one you've had.

Me with my late grandfather.

http://static.flickr.com/34/95772448_37fadad1e9.jpg?v=0

Ophelia

Ophelia's been wonderful. She doesn't sleep through the night like Teeny's baby did. Teeny, didn't he sleep through the night when he was seven weeks old? Well, Ophelia wakes up about two or three times a night now. I think it's GR34T. I now go to sleep at around nine-ish to catch up on sleep because my body's a wreck. Either my iron is too low or my blood pressure, cause I'm floating on clouds at the moment.

Ophelia has laughed a lot lately. I remember when she turned her head, looked at me and cracked a big smile... and then a bigger one. I nearly started crying, I was so happy. :-)))

Breastfeeding is great by the way. I have to say, few women I know did breastfeeding. Really strange... Well, not really, I can understand cause the first three weeks were painful and, heck, when you need to go back to work... I have given her a few bottles of formula (one time cause I was away for a perm and haircut and the second time for a photosession).

The other week we went for a photosession. hahaha What an experience. She cried of course but the photographer was great.

Teeny, are you back at work yet or will you remain at home for a longer time? It's been quite hard combining work with taking care of Ophelia. Thank god, I have a fantastic husband who will sometimes take care of her while I work.

I was always pro-choice but having Ophelia I now fully understand the implications of becoming a mother and thus understand even better that pro-choice is necessary. That said, I would never ever have an abortion. But that's because I have the luxury of making that choice. Not everyone is up for it. (Is that well put? My English has gone down the loo. heh)

Sorry for the long post.

A little light drooling on battery-powered devices never did any harm... (Oh, hang on, this is how Pam's mobile died...)

http://static.flickr.com/38/111448504_b5dd3cb23a.jpg

13 months tomorrow. Much sleep disruption with teething pains this last week and now she's having to endure our gas central heating installation (drilling and sawing = no naps & great need for reassuring cuddles from Mum). MMR jab next week.

sleeping through the night--I read somewhere that this is defined as going more than five hours without waking? I dunno. Funny you bring it up because I say we just last night had our first official sleeping through the night--10p to 6:30a without waking up or eating. That seems like way too long to go without eating though! However I know it was because very early on he rolled over from his back to his belly and I left him there, he sleeps so much more soundly on his belly. I don't know if they're as hard-core about it outside the US, but they really yell at you to always always put the baby on its back to sleep, it's reduced the rate of crib death by like half since they started doing this in 1992. So I feel a little guilty about leaving him on his belly but oh well.

Louis has always been good about letting me get enough sleep--probably starting around 4 weeks he settled into a good pattern of nighttime sleeping where he would wake up once or twice a night for a feeding and then go right back to sleep. However this only worked if he slept with me in my bed because he would wake up at other times too, and if he fussed enough to wake me up, I could just give him a little pat and he'd go right back to sleep, whereas if he was in the crib he'd work himself into a state by the time I could get to him. Babies are always going to wake up lots during the night, it's just about how they react to waking up and if they can get themselves back to sleep. And I'm sure you've read like I have that breastfed babies often need a middle of the night feeding into the sixth month.

I am working just a little bit--less than I did before the baby. My mom comes and watches the baby when I'm scheduled to work at the radio station, and then I have a couple of freelance web design jobs that I can work on in my spare moments at home. But it's more for my ego than any actual money I'm bringing in (although that's nice too).

Yesterday I decided to discourage Edith from eating the remote control. It was very difficult to prise it out of her iron grasp, and when I finally managed it she kicked up quite a fuss. All very traumatic. Then what should appear on Flickr but multiple portraits of Ava doing exactly what I'd just told Edith wasn't allowed because "that's Daddy's"! These older children can be a terrible influence sometimes.

Oh yes, breast milk tends to digest much quicker. I have been giving her a bit of formula milk and might do this once a day from now on so I can work more in the afternoon. I realize the books/midwives scream bloody murder about this, but, hey, this is the real world and it's not always manageable to breastfeed every time. :-) I know my milk supply is for more than enough. Urgh, too much actually. :-)

Michael, I know that ear is folded! My mother in law did not like the picture because the ear was folded, so we had to pick another one to include with the thank you notes we sent to family and friends. :-)

Do you practice/play with him a lot, Teeny? My husband and I do this every day. We put her on the table and let her play. We also put her on her belly so she has the opportunity to raise her head. It's not really necessary to do this, but, damn it, we'd miss out on the fun of seeing her raise her head. :-)

Anyhow, I wuv my baby as you can see. :-)

When we took S. in for his two-month checkup, the doctor flipped him onto his belly to check something, and we said "wow, he's basically never been on his belly before, we're very careful about only having him on his back"... She said "no no no--babies _love_ being on their bellies, and that's how they learn to push up and lift their heads. You just don't want to put him on his belly to _sleep_. Plus once he can flip over easily you don't need to worry about it any more."

Put the baby ONE TO TWO hours on their belly? Fuck me, I'm pretty sure that we only put her half an hour max on her belly. Not that it's so important. I have read that if ytou don't, they'll just learn to raise their head later.

We didn't give Cyrus or Rufus much belly time until they were 6 months old. I think that may have delayed their crawling some. Concern about SIDS also made us wait 6 months until "Ferberizing" Rufus so he'd sleep through the night. Worked like a charm. Some people call it "controlled crying." We still haven't got Cyrus sleeping through the night. We've started giving him water at night instead of formula in the hopes he'll stop wanting to snack at night. It does seem easier to get him back to sleep now, but he still wakes up about 3 times a night. He hasn't taken to his crib, and still likes to sleep next to one of our warm bodies (which means one of us usually sleeps on the couch as our bed isn't very big). We're going to have to bite the bullet and let him cry in his crib, I think. Problem is, when he cries loud and long, he wakes up Rufus, and then we have 2 crying kids to deal with in the night.

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(she was trying to grab those slash marks off the screen)

We went for a photosession:

http://static.flickr.com/27/112424433_c6ed2eb2f4.jpg?v=0

Not really for us, more for the fact she'll probably appear in an article on antique lace. Does she look GR34T in this 19th century gown or WHAT?

Anyway, yeah, we'll probably go again when she'll celebrate her "100 days". It's a Japanese tradition. We got a kimono for her from a friend and my mom's practically Japanese so... Yeah, we'll have a party and then take professional pics. :-)
(http://www.mtu.ne.jp/~hirofumi/ourbaby001.htm)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GY3-kjdbacI

"Don't let it ruin your weekend." Christ...

Consider your hand electronically held by all of us, Nathalie.

also, big heads make kids really cute.

Likewise I'm fairly socially awkward/enjoy being alone but am not as pathological about it as I used to be. Right now my baby doesn't seem to count as a person in that way, I really dig being alone with him. So maybe this will change as he starts to be his own person more. Having inlaws over more often (haha like once a month) is more of a pain than always being within boob's reach of a baby.

in somewhat related news, this week marks the beginning of the great sleep crackdown. my wife (who, because of our schedules, is mostly responsible for bedtime) has finally been persuaded that little dude needs to learn to go to sleep on his own, in his crib, instead of falling asleep next to her in bed. so we've had the predictable bouts of furious crying (accompanied twice by vomiting, because he got himself so worked up), but he seems to be grudgingly accepting his fate.

we've had the predictable bouts of furious crying (accompanied twice by vomiting, because he got himself so worked up), but he seems to be grudgingly accepting his fate.

CLASSIC, CLASSIC, CLASSIC!

http://static.flickr.com/34/119334906_602ba4e17d.jpg?v=0

We... or rather the inlaws bought us TWO play parks. (One for the shop and the other for our home.) She loves it! We've been fairing much better. As she's extremely active and likes to spread her arms and legs, the pram was too confined for her. The hell with swaddling, she likes to have her space.:-)Anyway, yeah, the park gives her the chance to play and also sleep and it gives me the opportunity to work and not carry her all the time. ;-)

She only wakes up one time in the night now! YAY! Once at 12 AM and then another time at around 3. One time she even managed to remain asleep until 7!

Oh yeah, we went for an echo. She was so good. And the specialist confirmed that Ophelia is doing great. :-)))

Re depression/time alone: I was very much afraid of post-natal depression as I'm prone to depression but I've done quite well. I realize that being tired does make me a bit bluesy at times, but I've got the perfect medication: my husband and child. :-)

http://static.flickr.com/35/119350712_50ab158f22_m.jpg http://static.flickr.com/53/119350700_2ba8e0feeb_m.jpg

Right now he's totally into mirrors, we have big mirrors in our house that he loves and also a small baby-safe plastic mirror that's good for a variety of places. If I put him on his belly facing that mirror, it's totally good for a half hour of entertainment. He also loves standing on a lap, and if you're sitting on the couch with the mirror behind it so that he can stand AND look at himself in the mirror, it's total baby crack.

We're doing good sleeping too, he's getting used to the crib and has a really solid nighttime schedule. He doesn't seem to want too much sleep in the daytime but this still varies.

The baby gym is great but she gets pissed off because she can't grab those play things (it's much higher up than the one in your pic, Teeny).

She loves the shop. I'm expecting that this is due to my family's genes: we're born shopkeepers.

I'm only half joking.

Ava just bloodied my nose - I was hanging upside-down off the daybed, making her laugh and she rammed a finger up a nostril... Pam thought it was hilarious. I had to crawl off to the bathroom with two sheets of kitchen roll. Ava showed fleeting concern and then went back to slapping the hoosier*.

(* - in the cabinet sense, not the Indiana resident sense).

Ava seems to have got over her little lunch trouble (protein? No thanks - unless it's dipped in yoghurt), mostly by letting her start to feed herself. It's messy. She thankfully still seems to need her two naps a day (many of the neighbourhood kids who go to nursery are down to one now), which allows us to get a bit more done around the house.

We're now looking at a total rewire in the house (had an inspection on Monday and the results were not good) so we may have to stay in a hotel or something for a week around Easter. It'll be our first holiday with the gal! Even if it's only 400 yards away...

The explosive joy of Louis in Teeny's pic! Wow!

http://static.flickr.com/46/114322358_ce7756e0a2.jpg

I think the brown stuff is ancient wallpaper from the days when people used to like living in parcels.

(I think I know the answer to this but I still want to hear it.)

She can also climb up things very easily...like the crate we use to protect the TV stand from her probing fingers. It's difficult to even leave the room for 30 seconds to boil a kettle now, she's so mischievous and hazard-seeking.

Here's Ava running around the Rachel Whiteread exhibit at the Tate Modern:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvsgyYrfqlI

Emma (10 1/2) has suffered her first sports-related injury, a foot deal from soccer. She'll be going into junior high in the fall, a science magnet school with a good reputation and a small student-teacher ratio; she is currently reading White Fang and The Castle of Cant and The Teddy Bear Habit; she pretends to be angry and petulant but she is really quite sweet and lovely.

Sammy (8 this summer) is in love with being Jewish, he actually cheers for anything having to do with Judaism -- except for Israel, which isn't "tolerant" enough. (Brainwashed? We live in Madison, Wisconsin, so you make the call.) He thinks "Young Frankenstein" and "Big Trouble in Little China" are hilarious good fun, so that's two of my top three favorite films ever; I wonder if he'd like Tarkovsky's "Nostalghia"? He is also looking forward to attending Yale (grrrr, traitor!) and becoming a Broadway star.

Louis is 4 months and some, he weighed in at 18 lbs at the doc a couple of days ago. He's really strong, he can sit up by himself for a few minutes at a time. He loves standing on a lap, especially if he can see the mirror behind the couch. He's got an incredible smile.

I'm enjoying being a stay at home mom to a remarkable degree, I'm probably going to quit my part-time job or at least go on hiatus for a while.

also the wrong people got elected to the school board this month so I'm pre-emptively worrying about the school situation again.

as for other things, it's funny to me to read the early posts on this thread, where kiddo wasn't even walking yet. he's fully mobile for a while now, which has made taking him to the playground a lot more fun for everyone. it's hilarious to just kind of tag along behind him and watch him play and start to interact with other kids. i basically try to just stay out of his way and keep him from getting hurt. there was a great moment last week where he was sitting in the sandbox, around a bunch of other kids, and was just playing with the sand and kind of looking out into space a little. it was cool to watch him think. and then he sort of snapped out of whatever reverie he was in and realized he hadn't done a spotcheck for a parent in a few minutes. brief flicker of uncertainty on his face, he stands up and does a quick scan of the scene -- and sees me sitting 4 feet away. then he got this big, reassured smile on his face, and sat back down to keep playing. it's a nice thing to know that just your mere presence is enough to keep a kid feeling secure.

http://static.flickr.com/52/127420130_bb7bd0a75a.jpg

Let's talk about...strollers! Specifically those accursed double-buggies, cos, er, we're going to need one later in the year. eBay seems the way to go (preying on those poor unfortunates who forget to make a reserve price) cos those Mutsi and Jane things are frighteningly expensive new. One in front, one behind is our preferred option; the double-width ones just seem designed to run peds off the pavement.

I am sure we will both have a lovely time.

Won't we?

I said, WON'T WE?

I wonder what you would have thought of our 3-year-old at the library the other day. He was making nice chit-chat with the librarian, telling her what kind of books he likes and whatnot. Then we walked away from the desk and he turned back and loudly said, "Oh, I want to tell you one more thing!... If you ever have a wedgy, just pull your underpants out of your BUTT!" I was mortified. I laughed so hard I cried. The whole children's room was in stitches.

We'll probably start testing solids (i.e. cereal) in the next week or so. Oh, the mess that is. Plus, it takes about five times as long to feed and you have to drag food stuff out of the house with you all the time...way more planning involved.

Teeny and Gypsy: the worry about school never ends. Ever. My three year old is starting to read and I had some private school snob come up to me and warn me that the public school would probably "give him a bad early reading experience." I wonder if that bitch rude woman heard me curse her under my breath as she walked off.

This sounds wonderful. Still waiting for Ava (14 months) to learn the value of the gentle touch (starring Jill Gaiscogne) - she slaps and smacks and pokes and prods and we're wary of letting her interact with her neighbourhood contemporaries for this reason. We guide her hand in a soft stroking motion to persuade that there is another way to touch Daddy's face which doesn't involve drawing blood, which she finds hilarious, and eventually builds up the stroking to a frenzy of scratching. Original nuttah.

I taught Edith to say cock-a-oodle-doo.

It comes out as doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oo.

I am not very keen on other parents. On the whole, they seem like a bunch of twats.

Present company excepted, of course.

But it does strike me as a problem, how to interact with others without feeling like an alien.

They're never too young for call centre work.

xpost

Here's Ava at 14 months, 8 days:

http://static.flickr.com/45/132975662_d6b85944fe.jpg

Ophelia is now exactly 100 days old. I know this because we are celebrating this. It's a Japanese celebration. Strange? Maybe, but you gotta remember my parents live in Japan. :-) It'll be a blast. :-)

I feel so weird for recognizing that label on Ava, ie Quinny. Anyhow, Ava is so beautiful! Those eyes!!!!

My awww moment this week: watching Emma and Sammy work together on their project for their school's science inquiry fair. They didn't fight hardly at all, and Emma was very patient with her fact-laden but kinda-hyper lil bro, whereas Sam tried hard to stay on task and not just let his sister do all the work.

UNO--OH NO. Must scrounge up. There were some baseball movies at the library but they were too sporty for me. Games, and arts, and crafts? Don't the kids like to vegetate anymore?

My mom says they are happy just drawing and making up their own games together.

mary, why don't you like Uno? I don't know how down an 11 yr old might be with drawing and making up games. My cynicsm tells me that playstation-attention-span already has a hold by that age.

And oh my god Ava's eyes. They could be prescribed as therapy :)

Oh well, they stayed with their grandparents. Perhpas they read this thread and were turned off by my entertainment ideas.

Edith was trying to hop yesterday, influenced by the boy next door.

http://static.flickr.com/49/134993365_70be31eb07.jpg

Baby K is now 2 1/2 months. It's remarkable how distinct she is to our other child at the same age. They're like totally different people.

Latest phase for 2 y/o is that when both parents are present, he's totally fixated on me, always underfoot, "up, up, up, up?!", cries when I leave the room, but he's dismissive and difficult w/ Mrs. Hunter, "NO! GO AWAY!" *push*. Do I just need to be the less permissive or more distant parent for a while? He's not like that to her when I'm not around.

anyway around here we've had slightly sick boy for a few days. he threw up a few times and has run a low fever. we think it's teething-related, because he's got a whole set coming in (his mouth is getting full of teeth, it's a little frightening really). i'm not sure why teething would make him throw up, but it seems like it's caused by gagging (maybe because he's not used to all those teeth being there?). anyway, last time he was like this with the teething it just lasted a few days, so maybe today he'll be more himself. poor kid. when he's sick i just feel like i'd do anything for him, you know? like, there's some kind of "sick kid" switch that gets turned on and i'm willing to put up with any amount of fussing or vomiting or whatever's going on, until he feels better again. one of those parenting mechanisms that you don't know you have until you need it.

Met an old college friend up on Merseyside this weekend and got to cuddle his 9-week-old daughter; I'd forgotten how tiny, light and fragile they are at that age. A timely reminder, I suppose.

Baby K is beautiful.

My little one (5 months last week, WTF!!!!!!!!!!) is getting rice cereal before bed every night now. She's probably teething. She's had a nasty cold, too. Misery for like three weeks. What is sex like, anyway? I can't remember.

here's a few from easter weekend, one in his easter outfit and one not:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/Zollereaster06.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/ZollerApril06.jpg

Anyhow, gotta go breastfeed Ophelia now. :-)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/gypsyfrocksbedlam/zollerblaine.jpg

(and is not terribly impressed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IIuIiC5ZLY

(sorry for the shitty quality)

So how about crying? I have been told I should leave her crying (without ferberizing) which TOTALLY FUCKING freaks me out. I know I should not spoil her, but I can't just leave her crying. :-( How do I find a middle road? I think ferberizing (sp?) is the way to go.

Ophelia still doesn't sleep through the night but then I do give her last bottle around 7 or 8 pm and she now sleeps until about 3 or, like this morning, 4 am. I don't really mind, but I know that sooner or later I'll need to *stretch* it.

http://static.flickr.com/51/141391974_33a30705f5.jpg?v=0

This is on her 100 days. My parents bought this Gap dress.

I'm afraid Ava raspberries a little too often - usually a third of the way through meal-time. Other developments: a seventh tooth and a terror of bubbles. We thought we'd be in for guaranteed roffles when we bought one of those bubble magic guns but, no - she screams and shakes with fear. I pick her up to console her and her eyes dart around, making sure they've all popped.

We Ferberize now (without knowing it was referred to as that) but certainly not at the age Ophelia is; we just couldn't leave her to cry at that age. Also, as I'm sure you know, there are different intensities of crying and some just aren't going to dissipate after 5 or 10 minutes. We were fortunate in that Ava was always a good sleeper so we weren't tested too often; if we'd had a colicky baby (and who knows with #2) perhaps we'd have been Ferberizing at every opportunity.

these nights I lay wake pondering my answers to recent queries:

have you ever seen an X-rated movie?

why did those people in Rent die?

what does getting drunk feel like?

when people get married, they do something where they take their clothes off and hurt each other. did you guys do this?

We've gone back to putting her on her belly. She's getting used to it again and lifts her head again. I'm very happy because this, together with propping her, expands her world. She's now getting the hang of throwing toys away. Yep, she's gonna be a feisty little girl.

A lot of people will say you MUST let them cry themselves to sleep or they'll never learn how to go back to sleep in the middle of the night and they'll be cranky and never develop good sleep habits. A lot of people will say you must NEVER let them cry themselves to sleep because it pumps all these stress hormones into the brain and they lose trust in you.

I got quite stressed out about it for a while listening to both sides, they couldn't both be right! But you can't let other people make you feel guilty or whatever, it's you and your kid and your sleep and nobody else's. If you trust your instincts and feel secure in your decisions, you won't feel guilty.

We haven't had to cry-it-out and I'm not sure that we could. If my kid was waking up five times a night and cranky all day, then that might be the best way to go. Right now he goes to sleep pretty easily and wakes up once a night around 5 in the morning if he wakes up at all. A month ago it was twice a night; he's growing and figuring things out. And he's really happy during the day. Letting him cry it out in order to skip that 5 a.m. feeding is not a good tradeoff for me.

Now, things may be different when he's older and crying for different reasons, but at this age that's where I stand.

During the day she really does need a lot of attention: she needs someone around her. Leave her alone for a few minutes and she cries (or shouts). She immediately stops when I (or someone else) approaches her. I don't mind,but I know in the long run she'll need to learn how to be on her own. OF course now is too soon, she's only four months old but later? I don't know... Mostly I just go with the flow of things. So far I think she's adapted extremely well. I can even put her in bed and let her fall asleep on her own in the evening!

Ongoing issue with S.: he DOES NOT LIKE the sippy cup at ALL. We've tried various models; he's just not into it, and it makes it difficult for him to get enough fluids, I fear.

He's still trying really hard to talk, but is having signifier/signified issues.

S. reminds us how old he is:

Mrs. Hunter treats people with traumatic brain injury. She likes the helmets. All the same, kiddo does not wear a helmet at the playground.

But before he got his helmet:

http://static.flickr.com/35/106923596_98df653033.jpg

We hit both sides of my husband's (divorced) family yesterday, it was like an oddysey of bad food. I'm surprised my husband didn't have scurvy and/or rickets, I've never seen these people eat a vegetable beyond iceberg lettuce. Anyway at least we have something to talk about now besides arguing about politics.

When do people stop accosting you in the supermarket to coo at your child? I never mind but it's a funny phenomenon.

oh while I'm thinking of it, let me totally spam the board with my diaper find: I found a good online discount diaper place: http://1800diapers.com/ Prices are equivalent or cheaper than anything I've found around here, and there's no sales tax (except in NJ I think) and cheap or free shipping. I just received my first order (2x174 Luvs) and got them quickly, they're just like diapers you get in the store (I thought maybe they'd be like for the Korean market or something, who knows). They sell diapers, formula, and wipes. The delivery-to-your-door factor is also a plus, god knows it's hard enough shopping with the kid(s) without dealing with enormous boxes of diapers. Use my discount code (LAAZ4830) and you'll get $2 off and I get a buck kicked back to me for my next order.

She was very insistently pointing at the 200ml mark on her bottle at lunchtime and saying, "Bo." We were in Bodeans, maybe that had something to do with it.

ophelia now loves being on her belly. her head control is GR34T! she also turns on her side.

http://static.flickr.com/48/144522666_51d5fc1e68.jpg?v=0

what a dear ophelia is, I can see a little of your face in hers there.

My First Mother Goose by Iona Opie is really nice.

My two-year-olds were really good today:) (Well, they were mine for about half an hour.)

I can't wait till Ophelia gets up but I think I'll just die of shock. :-) I'm so accustomed to her being on her back (or belly). I can't picture her walking around.

What book? Just a collection of *classics*, I guess. But as I'm looking for a Dutch version - I don't want to teach her English just yet (hah!) - I can't look on Amazon.co.uk. BUMMAH. Maybe I should teach her some English? heh.

http://www.liesbetslegers.be/

I don't suppose this is very helpful.

Breastfeeding is getting difficult again: she only wants to eat for about five minutes at each breast and then STOPS and CRIES. :-(((( I'm of course terribly worried that she'll be underfed. Boo. Maybe I should just relax. Maybe she's eating enough or maybe she's teething?!? I was very early with my first tooth and it seems to be hereditary.

I bought a high chair yesterday because soon we might introduce solids. Scary. :-)

Last night - she turned exactly four months old yesterdat - she slept in her own room for the very first time. It went surprisingly will (for me and for her). :-)

It struck me that a hell of a lot of families (maybe a majority in London) live like this - without the luxury of a separate room for baby. How do they cope? Cos we're struggling, really - doesn't help that Ava's got her first bad cold in a couple of months, but she wakes up every couple of hours and so do we.

Still, she loves the swing, the dog, her bathtime buddy Luke and the grounds (it could hardly just be called a garden).

We had the 13-wk on numero duo last week and all is well. Nuchal fold translucency results were good (Pam's 39 but the trisomy risk was down at 1:730) and all the bits appear to be there. We might discover the sex (never did with Ava) at the 20-wk scan in July. Foetus #2 is 69mm long!

It struck me that a hell of a lot of families (maybe a majority in London) live like this - without the luxury of a separate room for baby. How do they cope? Cos we're struggling, really - doesn't help that Ava's got her first bad cold in a couple of months, but she wakes up every couple of hours and so do we.

The midwives told us that it's best to put the baby in a seperate room from three months old. At the time I was pregnant and I could never imagine doing it as such an early age. Now she's four months and I decided on my own to put her in her own room. In the evening I felt extremely guilty, but during the night, when O woke me up for a feeding, I felt as though it was mean to be. It's far easier actually as there's a bathroom in the next room. (Yes, we're spoiled rotten: Ophelia has her own private bathroom.)

ANYWAY, the midwives said that, if you don't have a babyroom, one should put the baby in the bathroom (or any other room that can be darkened and is quiet.)

It's great hearing about new babies - yay for the good test results. It's a flashback but, I still don't know, a flashforward: I'm still undecided whether to have a second child or not. How did you guys decide? I think it's just weird deciding over a new life in a way...

The negative aspect to Pam's experience was that three kids generally meant a lot of 2 on 1 meanness. So we're stopping at two (but it's more an age thing with us). The gap will be 21 months for us, which seems pretty good.

Pam's had to do a lot of looking after Luke and Ava this week and it's been a shock to the system; two toddlers is bloody hard work. We can only comfort ourselves in the knowledge that #2 won't be mobile until next summer, by which time Ava might be a little more controllable.

Oh...Pam just called - she reckons Ava's got conjunctivitis. :(

We have an adorable book by a Belgian author:

http://www.innovative-educators.com/images/hb256.jpeg

I had the reverse of this last weekend - was going through boxes and came upon one full of the baby clothes I haven't been able to part with and showed some of them to S. He looked at me and very scornfully said, "I never fit into THOSE."

I've bought her a Casio SK-1 synthesizer which I'm going to give to her at her birthday party on Saturday. This morning she came into the bedroom at 7am and yelled "ANDREW! YOU FORGOT TO GIVE ME A BIRTHDAY PRESENT!" I feel like keeping it for myself now!

I need to get this tattooed on the inside of my eyelids, so I can remind myself of this fact during my commute (which seems to be the only time I sleep right now). Well, it's an automatic. Boom-tish!

Poor Ava's eyes are a right state - she's pretty chipper, apart from the constant waking-up and crying - but she looks like she's gone ten rounds with Alan Minter.

Me? Well, I'm undecided. :-(

I dunno. Work? Well, that's not easy/difficult: I can take it slower but still want/need to be here. I returned after two weeks or so. Even less, I think. Didn't bother me that much. Actually I was happier at work (in the shop) than at home alone.

Oh, I completely forgot the language thing! It doesn't help that you communicate in flawless English here.

Oh pff. As if! :-) I have been tempted to speak English to Ophelia but I figured it would be too much energy and it would also mean that she'd be slower in her language development... I dunno, just seemed too difficult. She can do what I did: watch gazillion hours of telly and learn from the subtitles when she's about 9 or so. ;-)

The big school musical this year was "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," and Sarah got a part as one of the gaggle of brothers' wives. The production went so well that somebody with connections sent a DVD to a bigwig at the Orpheum Theatre in Memphis. Long story short, the kids did a performance of Joseph at the Orpheum on the last day of classes before exams -- the first time any high school group has performed there, and it went as well as the performances at the high school.

It's been a hell of a busy year, but a great one. As you might expect, we're pretty proud of the kiddo.

My Sarah has been visiting us for 2 weeks, which has been great. It's such a relief to know my parenting didn't fuck her up too much - at 24, she seems to enjoy our company, is fun to be around, thoughtful, but not at all a morning person :) I'm going to be incredibly sad, taking her back to Flagstaff on the weekend. We won't see her again until December, when she finishes her masters and possibly (still merely possibly) gets married.

as for having another, we've gone back and forth and decided we want to. well, really my wife was sure immediately. i took some convincing, not because i don't want another kid -- i do -- but the first pregnancy ended 3 months early and the same thing is likely to happen again. those 3 months were really hard, every day in the icu, and we also got really lucky. her doctor says that if she goes on bedrest after the first 20 weeks, she can probably make it closer to full term. but even there, there's no guarantee. and there's the whole logistical issue of her being on bedrest for 4 1/2 months, who's going to watch the kid while i'm at work, etc. etc. but ok, still, one day it just hit me watching the kid doing something or other, he was just flipping through one of his books or something, and the amazingness of the whole thing just really hit me, and i thought, yeah, it's worth trying. we still have to work out timing (to the extent that's possible), but i guess we'll just figure it out as we go.

A friend of a friend had one miscarriage, one cribdeath but persevered: she had three children. It must have been so hard for her. :-( One pregnancy she had to remain in bed for months...

Ophelia now sleeps in her own bed and has slept through the night FIVE times now! I'm so proud. And so tired. Funny: now that I can sleep through the night, I feel how tired I am. :-)
I did feel slightly guilty for putting her in her own room as most people I know only did this at six months or even later. So what about you all? Tell me I'm not a coldblooded mother. ;-)))

During the day however she definitely needs a LOT of attention. IShe doesn't sleep much. I don't mind, I love it (most of the time - heh).

congrats to sarah AND mr & mrs rock hardy -- she couldn't have done it w/o you! quite a milestone. and now the empty nest era?

I just came off the worst night I can remember though (nb I may not remember a few in the first weeks)--I guess it's teething, he's suddenly gone from one wakeup a night to one every hour or two, he just comes right out of sleep yelling. I gave him some liquid tylenol around 3 this morning and I'm not sure it helped. He has some bad spells during the day too. Oh well, this too will pass. And otherwise it's a really lovely age. :)

Teething? Urgh, I am not looking forward to it. Well, in a way I am if it's not like my friend's son: he had engorged (?) purplish gum! Poor thing. Anyway she's been biting on her own finger and also other objects so maybe it's starting? I was early so maybe she as well? Then again my husband started teething later.

I hope the babycenter website is right: that the first teeth is the biggest problem (and the molars).

Also good for teething: leave a carrot out on the counter for like a day-ish, until it gets all limp. It has a good flavor for them, and they can chew on it forever without biting pieces off and having choke-on-able size chunks in their mouth.

I don't really have any major objections to it (except for waiting until school lets out for the summer - and that's really only because I don't want it to be a distraction... like the time I let him wear blue nailpolish to school when he was in first grade and his teacher called me and basically said 'you'd better not do that again or the kids WILL THINK HE'S GAY OH NO OMG WTF'), but I'm getting hung up on the fact that I think 8 1/2 might be too young to be starting up with hair dye.

What do y'all think?

Maybe you could offer him one of those 24-hr washoutable hair dyes as a sort of trial run or something?

Her latest hilarious thing is to nod vigorously, as if in agreement with what she's just said. She has proper shoes now - red gingham numbers - and some pale blue sandals. She still finds my humming the opening riff to "Tears of a Clown" hilarious and her love for Kraftwerk knows no bounds.

I'm seriously up for another baby but I think we'll wait till she's a year.

Teeny, did you start on solids yet?

http://static.flickr.com/58/164424008_c3f325686e.jpg

The (American) book we have recommends rice cereal, something which they don't do at all here: they start with fruit and veggies. But they do recommend waiting until six months if you breastfeed. I don't know, I just can't wait that long. :-( Part of me worries but ah hell I was eating solids when I was 2 months old!

Apparently here, in Belgium, only 60 procent starts with breastfeeding. By six months only 15 procent continues and only 4 procent manages to do a year of breastfeeding! WTF!

American advice is very consistent about rice cereal to start because it's one of the least allergenic foods, but it's totally refined and then vitamins are put into it--nutritionally speaking it's not that fantastic because of the synthetic nature of the vitamins. But baby is getting most of her needs filled through mothers milk still, so it's not that important. One book I have recommends that breastfed babies start on banana because its sweetness is similar to breast milk.

You can totally wait until 9 mos-one year to start solids if you want, babies who have parents with food allergies should go that long (so they say) because it decreases the likelihood of those allergies developing. (although a lot of times docs will recommend vitamin supplements too.) But at the same time it's nice to get them in the habit of taking food from a non-boob source, I think that's why the six-month mark is frequently mentioned. I don't think there's any babies who didn't figure it out eventually though. ;)

Here's a page on breastfeeding rates in the US and around the world: http://www.kellymom.com/writings/bf-numbers.html

In the last couple of weeks she's started to really associate the word "puppies" exclusively with dogs whereas, previously, it just seemed to be a word she liked to say. She shrieks, "Puppies!" at dogs in the streets, in books, on advertising hoardings. Pam propaganda, I reckon.

I wonder how long my glee at peace and quiet will last. I reckon about 30 minutes.

"papa" (that's me!)

"agua"

and some others I can't remember. As much Spanish as English at the moment, but none of it particularly clearly.

And stuff like "cuckoo", "quack quack" and "woof woof", but they are from the animal kingdom.

He's also getting good at the "point to the cat/bunny/nose/door" game.

AWESOME