A Year in Review

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Labor of Love

OK, I'm not gonna lie. I'm finding baby-food making to be time consuming and somewhat stressful!

I do think it's best for Joseph, and I plan to continue on our path of homemade cooking, but sometimes it feels like another part-time job! Planning, shopping, cleaning, cooking, pureeing, doling out into ice cube trays, freezing, bagging and tagging. Trying to figure out a menu. Then defrosting/reheating. Not to mention finding ways to make it portable (frozen cubes don't fit in baby food jars - doh!

Yes, it's definitely more work. Is it worth it? I think so. But a heck of a lot more work than popping open a jar! Perhaps once he's eating table food things will be less work, and T.J. and I can start eating more healthfully again, too. I've found that after caring and feeding Joseph, we often end up with hamburgers, macaroni, ramen, or pizza. T.J. is in heaven.

This week we made blueberries, mango, kabooka squash, delicata squash, green beans, peas, apples, bananas, and pears. Whew!

You know you're a mom when...

You don't mind that you have to sit in a paper gown for 45 minutes waiting for your gynecologist, because it's quiet and you are alone!

Being a mom is so weird sometimes.

New Trick!

Joseph is learning to push himself up to a sitting position! He did it twice last night, but was unsuccessful just now, so he's still working on it.

We babysat one of the babies from my mom's group yesterday, and she was crawling all over and pulling up - it was so neat! I am starting to kind of hope that Joseph isn't far behind... It was really cool to see her go and T.J. had fun having "races" with her! I guess I'll have to stop pushing him back down when he tries to crawl.

KIDDING!

One Year Ago on DomerBaby

December 26 - January 1

• 30 week belly picture + belly timeline - See DomerBaby Grow
• Pumping Iron - Hmm, maybe I need to start doing this again!
• Moby wrap - and other goodies
• Perfect Parents - Ah, the good old days when we knew everything about parenting!
• Happy New Year - 2009 was the best yet!
  

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful day, and thanks to skype and web cams, we almost feel like our families came to us this year!

Santa Came! He Really Came!

Christmas Morning

Enjoying New Toys

Good Manners Start Early: Reading the Card First

Paper!

Playing with his new camera from Grandma and Grandpap

Diagnosis

Joseph and I have been sick for about 10 days now. He's definitely getting better, but I was getting worse. This morning I woke with (another) raging headache and my teeth were killing me! I wasn't sure whether to call the doctor or the dentist, but it turned out that I have a sinus infection. Apparently your sinuses can push on your gums when they stuff up.

So now I'm on antibiotics in case it's bacterial (I think since I've had the cold 10 days they felt it must be). The doctor said that babies don't get sinus infections, so Joseph shouldn't be suffering.

Antibiotics can cause thrush (yeast infection in the breast) which can then transfer to the baby's mouth and it's just a big awful mess of passing infection back and forth. The way we're trying to prevent that from happening is by taking probiotics. Apparently they put good flora back in your gut.

Oh, and for breastfeeding moms, there is a great book that tells about the safety of many medications call Breastfeeding and Medication by Dr. Hale. Your local LLL leader should have a copy and be able to look up any meds you have questions about. Mine were great today while I was trying to figure this all out, especially after talking to a pharmacist who told me that I should stop breastfeeding while I took them (for 14 days). Um, right. I did tell the doc that I was breastfeeding but he seemed to be more of a specialist in diabetes from the info in his room, so I didn't really trust him, either! I called my leaders, and learned that it was an "L2" drug. "L1" being the most tested and safe. So that's pretty good. Very little should get to Joseph, and no adverse affects have been recorded in breastfeeding children.

Anyway, now I should be on the mend! And hopefully the probiotics will ward off any thrush. I'm so happy I have my LLL leaders to help me.

Using the Sippy

He's starting to get the hang of it.

Of course, his favorite thing to do is flick water from the top with his finger:

Only slightly less fun is gnawing on the top:Occasionally, however, he does do some sipping:

One Year Ago on DomerBaby

December 19 - 25

• Shower photos - from my MN Shower
• Diaper prepping - boiling diapers. So iconic.
• Mover and a Shaker - Video of DomerBaby rolling and kicking. Not unlike what I do now!
• Bye Bye Feet - see you in 3.5 months.

Awesome things about Joseph

There are so many random things to share!

1) He is super good about getting his teeth brushed! I don't remember to do it 2x every day, but I'm trying to make it part of our schedule. I just forget a lot! Now that he has SIX teeth, I'm trying to put effort into it.

2) He's a baracuda. The kid chomps through everything. Board books? No problem. He can eat those like oatmeal. Special baby flip books that you inset your own pictures into? He's chewed through them all. Sippy cup? Special low-flow is gone. He chomped through the "valve". I'm pretty sure he's put holes in one of my sweatshirts. I caught him trying to gnaw on our coffee table today. Oy. The only thing it seems he doesn't gnaw on is me while nursing. So I'm cool with him eating everything else. Really, I am.

3) He made his second sign! (I think) I'm pretty sure that he signed for "more" puffs!

4) Speaking of puffs, more of them are making it into his mouth than the floor now. And he only gags and throws up about 1 out of every 3 meals while trying to eat them. Progress, eh?

5) He loves the bath! He likes to play with the turtle that takes the water temperature. He likes to play with the measuring cups (he figured out that he can make a great "bang" noise if he raps the side of the tub today). And of course, he likes to drink his bath water. So gross.

6) Speaking of gross, did you know that kids start trying to eat their own boogies so early? Me neither. Gag.

All in all, he's a brilliant, disgusting kid I guess!

Oh Christmas Tree

I'll have more pictures later, but here are some I've already taken. I realized I had an entire PAGE of posts with no pictures of Joseph. Horrors. I plead illness. I've felt like crap for a week and a half.

Joseph discovers ornaments

Christmas Glory

Mama and Wawa

I don't know why Joseph rarely-to-never uses the "da da" sounds that most babies start out with, but he's started to make a "wa wa" sound when he wants T.J. It's pretty cute.

This morning he turned to me when we were all in bed and said "Mama". T.J. thinks that he meant it. I'll take it even if he didn't.

Miracle on My Street

He is real, he is! He's not just a nice old man with whiskers.

I got my Christmas wish last night. Joseph slept 4 and a half hours straight! Then he woke up, ate, and went back to bed for another 3 and a half hours.

IN HIS CRIB

That is 8 hours with just a feeding in between!!!!! (and !!!)

::cabbage patch::

Oh I needed that rest. I was considering booking a one-way ticket to Mexico yesterday! Well, maybe not. But we did consider trying to bribe my mom to come down and take care of us. Hehe.

And he's feeling much better today - no fever since yesterday morning. He still has a cough, but the doctor said that'll last a few weeks. It's not bothering him very much.

24 Hours

The time it took from when I 'unlocked' a cabinet for Joseph's use until he pinched his fingers in the door.

Been a rough week for the little guy.

PS. This wasn't *my* bright idea... every book on child development I read says that I should give him a cupboard to play in. And yes, I was watching him. Doors close fast and fingers are tiny.

Scratch that.

Joseph woke with a fever today. And after us both being sick and not sleeping for 5 days now, I'm not feeling so hot, either. So no date for us. Boo.

Even worse, I didn't get to go to my mom's group cookie exchange. Sometimes doing the right thing stinks so bad! But I wouldn't wish this on any of my mom friends. Luckily one of the girls was able to come and pick up my contribution (7 dozen cookies!) and said she'd bring me back a good mix. So there is a little silver lining.

Hopefully we'll turn things around in the next day or so! I really want to go to a holiday party we've been invited to on Sunday!

Ahem. I'm going on a date.

Well, actually we're going to T.J.'s work Christmas party. But it'll involve a shower, hair drier, makeup, and clothes that aren't specifically engineered for nursing!

This is our first date night since Joseph arrived.

::dodges tomatoes::

Don't give us a hard time about taking so long to do it - we are ready now (and we weren't before) and that's what matters.

Hopefully Joseph does well with my friend Whitney. I'm more worried about her than him! Haha.

Joseph is 40 weeks 3 days old

Why is that at all interesting? Because I gave birth to him at 40w 3d. He has now spent as much time on the "outside" as on the inside.

Just food for thought.

9 Month Pediatrician Appointment

Joseph and I (T.J. had to fly to New York this morning) went to see his pediatrician today. He has a pretty bad cold right now, but we still got his last vaccine from the 6 month appointment.

He's doing great - just following along his own path. Here are his stats:

Height: 28.5" (55%)
Weight: 15lb 9oz (<3%)
Head: 43.8cm (11%)

So he's fallen a bit for head and weight, but stayed the same for height. I just realized today that we still have him on the CDC charts, not the WHO charts. He probably would be holding his own *slightly* better with weight on the WHO. I'll have to try to remember to ask about it next time.

We're going to add in meat, legumes, and dairy to his diet and cut back on the rice and oatmeal. The doc is more concerned that he gets nutrient rich foods vs. fortified calories, which makes me happy. We've decided against the multivitamin that has iron for now - he has some difficulty with pooping now that I don't want to make worse with an iron supplement. So we'll go with fish and meat for now and see how things look at his 12mo appointment.

I can't believe that at our next pediatrician appointment he will be a year old! Insane!

Pulling up

Joseph seems to be trying to learn to pull himself up on things now. He still isn't crawling, but he can definitely get himself around by "scooting" or rolling. He's very active, and I think all this learning is contributing to his night wakings. I've read that as babies master skills, they often wake at night to practice (unintentionally - their bodies just kind of start working!)

Joseph and Lily

I watched a friend's baby for a couple hours the other day and it was so fun! She makes Joseph seem like such a "big boy". Scary!

Rachel dropped Lily off while Joseph was asleep, so when he woke up I brought her in with me to get him. He looked at her and got a HUGE grin on his face! I put her on the bed to hang with him and he was just all smiles and giggles immediately. He usually needs a few minutes to get the grumpies out when he wakes up, so it was spectacular.

He woke up just as I was going to feed her, so I put him on the floor with his toys and sat down with her in the boppy to give her the bottle. I thought he might be jealous seeing me feed another baby in "his" position, but he just thought it was the best thing ever. Smiling and giggling like crazy. She ate for about 25 minutes, and he was completely fine the whole time. Amazing.

Here are some photos of them "playing" together after her bottle:

Hanging out at the play gym

Utter concentration on the task at hand
See, Lily? This is how you eat the gym!
Dont' let him too close - did you see those teeth?
Aw, Joseph is such a big boy!

Give (homemade) peas a chance.

Last Thursday, Joseph and I attended a mom's group event at a really cool local store called Eco Emporium. In addition to getting to check out the store, we also had a representative from Yummy Spoonfulls there and got to try their organic frozen baby food. Although I don't think it's worth the price for us - I just can't justify $8/lb when making his food is so easy - it did get me in the mood to make baby food again! So yesterday while Joseph napped I made him:

• sweet potatoes
• carrots
• pumpkin
  
• delicatta squash
• broccoli
• sweet peas
• green beans
• peach puree

It only took a couple hours, and it's enough food to last a LONG time. I would guess at least 3 or 4 weeks. Joseph is still needing his food pureed pretty well, so that's how I prepared it all. If you are interested in making your own baby food, I recommend checking out wholesomebabyfood.com - I find it much easier than flipping through books. That's just me, though.

I baked the sweet potato; cut the pumpkin and delicatta squash in half, cleaned them out, and rubbed with a little olive oil and put face down on a cookie sheet to roast; the carrots, peas, broccoli, and green beans got steamed, and the peaches got simmered in a little bit of water. Then I just processed everything in my food processor, adding some of the cooking water if necessary. The peas and green beans got pushed through a strainer to get rid of the hulls.

Interestingly enough, I had one of those jars of peas left in the cupboard. The woman from Yummy Spoonfulls had commented about the color of their food vs. commercial organic, so I compared mine to the jar.

Earth's Best Organic Peas on the left ~ DomerBaby Special on the right

Holy moly. Those colors are actually true to real life, too. We will not be buying any more jarred foods unless we're traveling or something. And for the record, I think the yummy spoonfuls is only marginally more expensive than the jarred Earth's Best, so I'd probably spring for that if/when we need to buy prepared foods for Joseph.

Putt-Putt Ball Return and More

Joseph loves to shag golf balls for daddy

Golf balls are nice to gnaw on, too. (While supervised, of course)

Ooh, what's that?!?

I knew I could get there!

Hinges are so interesting.

One Year Ago on DomerBaby

December 12 - 18

• Back from the 'Burgh - a great time in PA
• Birth kit - preparation continues
• Plugging a Blog - Stuff White People Like. It's too funny.
• 28 Week Appointment
  
• Baby's Position - as drawn by me.
• More Diapers - actually my least favorite ones. I only used them a few times.

Santa

Here are some "outtakes" from our Christmas photo shoot.

Joseph is 9 months old!

Wow! He's getting so big.

New tricks:
can scoot on his tummy to get objects out of reach
turns around on his belly in a circle
is starting to use tone and inflection in his voice
*may* have done his first sign (milk!)

He also likes to help mama with the laundry, throw food on the floor from his high chair, and play with his friends (i.e. take turns stealing each other's toys). He's strong enough to be on his hands and knees now, though he generally skips that in lieu of just catapulting himself onto his belly from a sitting position.

We've gone through a few rough days, due to some sickness and teething, but he's such a wonderful part of our lives. We're lucky to have him around.

I'm going to upload some photos in a separate post!

Cloth Diaper Stash Update

We've made a few more additions to the diaper stash in the last couple of months. Joseph is a skinny guy, but he keeps getting taller, so we've moved up sizes in some of the diapers. I think he's about 16 pounds and has a rise of approximately 16-17" right now.

We are now using size large happy hempies for overnight, which we stuff with their hemp stuffins inserts plus a AFFF hemp doubler, which I trifold. Holy bulky diaper. No more night time changes, though. He stays in that diaper (happily) from 7 or 8pm to 7 or 8am. We use his wool longies or size medium thirsties covers over them. Completely bulletproof.

During the day we are in between sizes. We are still using yellow edge prefolds with size small thirsties covers, but also red edge prefolds with size medium thirsties covers. All the rest of his diapers still fit him, and we generally use the size medium covers for them. We have pretty much given up on the Cricketts diapers... they just don't work for his body shape very well. Every once in a while I'll use them, but I'm not a huge fan. I think I'll be selling them soon.

Although I'm terribly lazy about washing and lanolizing, I really do love the wool. One of the best things is that you can tell when they are wet faster because you can feel the *warmth* - though no wetness. I think that'll be helpful for potty training, which we're planning to start sometimes early next year. The problem is that I put off washing them so I don't get to use them for like 3 weeks before I do wool wash again. Bad mama.

I don't think I've posted this before, but here is my diaper spreadsheet. I believe I have everything updated on this sheet. As you can see, we've spent almost $700. Given the cost of diapers and wipes, I'm pretty sure that we are already ahead than if we'd used disposables for this amount of time... not sure though as I never priced them exactly. Plus it's hard to say how many disposables we'd go through. Regardless, one of the best parts of cloth diapering is that my diapers have a resale value!

St. Nicholas Day

St. Nick stopped by on Sunday to bing Joseph a couple presents. Since Joseph's shoe is so small he just set them against the wall by his shoe.

A present for me?!?

Apparently he's getting over his fear of rustling paper. Seriously.

This is so fun!

Look, Daddy, I gotP.J.'s!

He also got The Night Before Christmas

One Year Ago on DomerBaby

December 5 - December 11

• Christmas Shopping
• Christmas Tree
• Why mumus are not popular - when sweaters go bad.
• Pregnancy Brain - Oy.
• Toys for Tots - fun at the toy store!
• Irony - why fashion sucks
• No room in the womb - DomerBaby is getting bigger!
• Walking the walk - At least I realized how hard it was last year. It still is.
• How to talk to a pregnant woman - A review course!
• Midwives Tales - hahaha.
  

The WHEN, NOT IF Milestone

I've always known that Joseph's first fall off of a piece of furniture (bed, couch) was an inevitable milestone that we'd someday reach, no matter how careful we are. Well, it happened today.

It must have been fate though. T.J. got home from a few days in New York city last night and his suitcase was out this morning. I had my mom's group coming to our house so I was "cleaning". By cleaning, I mean I threw everything in our room - including the suitcase with all of his stuff in it still. It ended up on the floor at the foot of the bed - right where I change Joseph. So, as I went to wet a wipe down in the bathroom, I hear a little ::thud:: and a slight "distress" cry from Joseph. My heart drops and I book it back the three steps to the bed and see him sitting/laying between the bed and the suitcase. He wasn't even hurt - just pretty surprised to find himself down there half-naked!

Thank goodness he wasn't injured and seemed to have fallen (or flipped) so he hit butt-first.

Diaper changes will henceforth take place on the floor - or he'll be coming along with me to the bathroom for wipe-wetting and diaper-dunking.

Wonder Weeks

My friend Kat turned me onto the book "The Wonder Weeks." The premise is immensely interesting - they studied apes in Africa and found that the little babies were universally prone to go through "difficult" times at regular intervals in their development. The authors went back home and began studying humans. Amazingly, human infants did the same thing! I know it sounds a bit far fetched, but so far it's been spot on. This is a mostly cognitive development thing.

I tend to read the book after the last "Wonder Week" passes for the upcoming one, and then forget about it until Joseph gets really ornery. Then when he gets better I'll be like, "Oh I should check the book" and sure enough, right "on time" the clouds have cleared.

Yesterday I was feeling particularly good about our day - it seems almost like we have inside jokes or something now - so I grabbed the book this afternoon to see when the Wonder Week was (I couldn't remember exactly). We're at 38w5d now and it says at 39 weeks you'll go through an especially nice period! How about that.

"Big deal" you say - it was 2 days off. Except Joseph was born at 40w3d. So "adjusted" he is 39w1d - yesterday he would have been 39w.

::spooky sounds::

Mom's, get this book. If nothing else, it'll make you feel like these awful periods are a sign of something positive in your baby's life, which can make them easier to tolerate.

Yes, Santa, I've been a VERY good boy!

I took Joseph to see Santa! He did great - no crying! I took a bunch of pictures, but I might use one for our Christmas card so I'll just give you a little taste.

Another new tooth!

#5 is alive! It's his top left incisor. That probably explains all the grumpiness lately!

FO: Earflap Hat for Cade!

Can you tell that I have a lot of green yarn? This hat is for my friend Dawn's son, Cade. He's a darling boy. I hope it fits! It's pretty big on Joseph, so I have high hopes! Here is the ravelry info in case you want to make one! I still need to make the ties for the ear flaps. :)

Picture in Picture

Joseph loves eating - I mean - looking at his baby pictures

My friend Sian knitted his sweater - so cute with his new babylegs!

Do I look the same?

How 'bout now?