the world is a happy and wonderful place

When I posted the 7-months pic of Elias with guitar for scale, I promised a more comprehensive report at a later time. In addition to all the drama around sleep, this video sums up pretty well what Elias has been working on these past few weeks, namely moving, making noise, and trying to get at whatever it is I have in my hands (camera, cell phone, utensil, coffee cup, etc.).



I started the video to try and capture this rocking thing Elias does when he gets himself up on his hands and knees. Instead I recorded this little ventriloquist act he's got going the past couple of days. You can also see his bottom two teeth pretty well. I took the camera back from my little apprentice when he started scratching at the lens. He's got toy versions of a cell phone and car keys...I guess camera will have to be next.

As for the song in the background (and the title of this post), I honestly didn't even realize I was humming and then whistling along until I watched the video. I get such a kick out of this song for some reason.

Ay, ay, ay, ay
Blue skies forever
The world is a happy and wonderful place
As long as we are together

Indeed.

this one's for the ladies

No, I'm not pregnant again, but just about everyone else is! 2009 may be the year of the ox, but it's also apparently the year of the baby. I know seven gals who are expecting, and that's just in the first seven months of the year! And who knows what the final five months of 2009 might bring. Turns out Heather Havrilesky is, in her words, "manufacturing a small human" again, too. Right around this time last year, when I myself was expecting, I compiled a sort of index of Havrilesky's writing about pregnancy. Her most recent essay on the topic, in which she makes a case for why Obama should enlist the help of late-stage pregnant women, is equally entertaining. Anyway, even if you're not pregnant, you should give it a read. And if you are pregnant, it'll make you feel pretty empowered. Or at least you'll know that there's strength in numbers.

While we're on the topic of making pregnant ladies feel good about themselves, months ago I pulled an article out of the health section of the October/November 2008 issue of Fit Pregnancy (I continued to get the magazine for a couple of issues beyond Elias's birth), intending to one day blog about what I felt was a pretty shocking article. The article, titled "Too much mama," explains "why experts are rethinking the pregnancy weight-gain guidelines." This was a topic of great interest to me during my pregnancy. I've always had issues with my weight and I wasn't the weight I wanted to be when I got pregnant. But I felt I was healthy enough (I wasn't going to necessarily put off family planning so I could lose a few more pounds) and pretty confident I could out-run my first OB/GYN, even at four months pregnant. Well into my second trimester, I switched doctors for this very reason and went on to gain about 45-50 pounds by the end of my pregnancy (honestly, those last few weeks I barely even glanced at the scale each week). And unless they were feeling deathly ill for the entire first trimester, I don't know a single woman who managed to stay within the recommended 25-35 pound weight gain. Needless to say, I was shocked when, upon reading the article, I discovered that the experts are considering lowering that weight gain recommendation. The new studies sited in the article suggest that a woman with a "normal" prepregnancy BMI (19.8-26) gain only 5 to 22 pounds. Total. Five?! Unless you lose weight during your first trimester, I don't even see how that's possible. And frankly, I think it's unfortunate that women are made to feel they've really accomplished something by not gaining weight until halfway through their pregnancy because they spent the entire first three months barfing.

Now, I realize that gaining too much weight increases your risk for various pregnancy problems and I was fortunate that none of these things were ever an issue for me (for example preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, hypertension, etc.). I also lost the weight pretty quickly; by the time Elias was about four months old, I was about five pounds less than my prepregnancy weight, which I attribute to a combination of breastfeeding and that crazy elimination diet I was on (weaning Elias to formula and going off that diet at the same time, followed by the holidays has put me a couple pounds over my prepregnancy weight, but still). But if the mom-to-be and unborn baby are otherwise doing well, I think that women should be free from all the pressures around food and weight during at least those nine months of their lives.

To all my pregnant superwomen friends out there I say, have another piece of rhubarb pie!

7 months (with guitar)

I just spent the last hour or so trying first to figure out how to create an animated .gif (slightly confusing but do-able) and then how to upload it to Blogger (reading conflicting reports of having to first upload the file to another photo-hosting site and other claims that Blogger has fixed whatever glitch was preventing animated .gif files from remaining animated upon upload). Neal took a batch of photos of Elias earlier today, four days after his 7-month birthday, and I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I thought it'd be a fun way to learn how to create an animated file. But my time is limited. So here's the one static photo you get:


If you really want to see the animated file, click here.

Elias weighed in at 20 pounds 12 ounces, fully clothed, during a quick visit to the pediatrician on Thursday for the second round of his flu shot. I figure he's probably around 20 pounds, give or take a few ounces, without clothes on. The seventh month of Elias's life will forever be remembered as the month the sleep train officially departed (or arrived?). We're now two weeks into it and it's going pretty well so far. There have definitely been some bumps here and there but for the most part, Elias is asleep within about 15 minutes of being placed in his crib (after a bedtime routine that takes about an hour!) and sleeps pretty well through the night. Occasionally he fusses a bit longer before giving in and/or wakes up once or twice throughout the night, usually settling himself back down before I instinctively hop out of bed to fetch him. Naps are going a bit better - I think we enjoyed one or two days this past week of both morning and afternoon naps lasting a bit over an hour each. That's still probably not quite as much daytime sleep as he should be clocking in but a huge improvement over the past few (okay, seven) months.

And we're no longer roomies, which is, as you might guess, a bittersweet development. Neal and I successfully switched what was the family bedroom with Elias's play room (nursery without the crib, which was in our room). So now Elias has our room and we're in what used to be the nursery/office/studio/spare room. I think I checked on him three times last night between the time we put him to bed and the time we went to bed, maybe three hours later. Needless to say, it was a restless night for me, but I'm looking forward to being able to read in bed again, and, believe it or not, getting up a bit earlier than he usually does (without worrying about waking him) in order to get myself ready for the day before the day is consumed with about twelve hours of constant feeding, diapering, changing, and otherwise entertaining him. I do miss being able to so easily check on him throughout the night, though.

Speaking of sleep, there have been other noteworthy developments this past month, but I'm beat. I'll hold this thought until I have a chance to blog again in the next couple of days.

7 months (without guitar)

We didn't have a chance today to pose Elias with the Guitar Hero guitar for his official 7 month photo. I'll be back with that and an official update later this week or weekend, but in the meantime, here's an awfully adorable picture Neal took of him this morning while I exercised a few other parts of my brain amongst other adults...okay, really old teenagers, but still.


Also, as an addendum to my sleep train update yesterday, here's a pic I took of Elias, shortly after he woke from a nap a few days ago.


By the end of his nap he'd managed to roll himself over onto his tummy, face the opposite end of the crib, and re-arrange all his crib toys and loveys.

the sleep train: part two

The sleep training continues to go fairly well. Other than what I'm hoping was a blip the last couple of nights, last night going a little better than Sunday night, Elias continues to take up to about a half-hour to fall asleep. He cries pretty hard for a few seconds when we first leave the room, but after that it's usually a combination of playing and mild fussing before things eventually get quiet. He's even gone to sleep with no tears a few times. Sunday night got off to a bad start (it was after 9 before Neal finally soothed Elias to sleep and once again, there was some vomit involved) but then Elias slept until about 7 yesterday morning. He's slept through the night every night since we got on this train a little over a week ago (by the way, in my still sleep-deprived state, I mistakenly wrote that all this started early Friday morning...it was actually early Sunday morning, not that it makes much difference). The morning nap has been going pretty well, but I'm still having a hard time getting Elias to take an afternoon nap. And it seems like we rarely get him to bed before about 8 every evening despite putting real effort toward an earlier bedtime. I think the difficulty has come from trying to have dinner and clean up the kitchen after Neal's done with work but before the bedtime ritual begins. Considering our bedtime routine takes about an hour, it's just too much to try to get done without keeping the kid up a little late, especially considering he rarely takes much of an afternoon nap. So I think we're going to start the bedtime routine shortly after Neal stops working and try to have dinner after, which may mean some late dinners but hopefully we can start getting Elias to bed closer to 7 or so.

That's where we stand on that. I do hope the crying, even though it hasn't been anywhere near as bad as I feared, ends completely at some point. And I worry about what sort of setbacks we'll experience following a trip, teething, illness, etc. (although it seems like everyone I know has experienced these kinds of setbacks, regardless of the particular sleep training method they've employed). But it does seem like Elias is sleeping better and longer than he has in months. I'm catching up, myself, although I find I'm still waking up a couple of times throughout the night.

In other news, this is the photo that's in the lead to enter the Beautiful Baby Contest. I'm a little surprised, actually. I mean, I like all the "finalists," but I guess I didn't think that one in particular would take the lead. There's still time to vote, if you haven't already (check out the poll to the right)! I'll reveal the photo we end up submitting later this week.

don't hate me because my baby is beautiful

Yep, that's right. Neal and I have thought long and hard and decided - to try, at least - to exploit Elias's good looks for monetary gain. When you think your baby is the cutest baby ever (and who doesn't think their baby is the cutest baby ever?) and you've taken hundreds of photos of him over the past several months, why wouldn't you submit one of those photos to the Live with Regis and Kelly annual Beautiful Baby contest for a chance to win a nice college fund? A week shy of seven months, Elias - aside from being the most beautiful baby, of course - just barely qualifies for the contest, open to "babies" between 6 months and 4 years (I think the top end of their age range is pushing the definition of "baby" a bit, but that's neither here nor there). Plus, as Neal pointed out, the winners the past four years straight have all been girls. They have to pick a boy this year.

We've picked our own finalists from the past month, per the contests rules and regulations, and we're leaving it up to you, loyal blog readers, to choose the photo you think we should enter into the contest. Here's how this will work: Take a look at the six photos below, then vote for your fave in the poll at the top right corner of this blog. You have until next Wednesday, January 21st (Elias's 7 month birthday!), to vote.

Here we go:

Image 1


Image 2


Image 3


Image 4


Image 5


Image 6


Thanks for participating! I'll keep this blog updated on the winning photo and of course will let you all know how Elias fares in the competition. I'm sure we'll be headed to the Big Apple in a couple of months...

the sleep train: part one

I'm not sure how many parts this series of blog posts will have. Hopefully not many. Either way, I thought it was about time I updated this blog on our efforts to help everyone get a little more sleep around here. It's a hard thing to write about without getting defensive, our sleep efforts the past week being one of the latest things we've done in the past seven (almost) months that I really never imagined I'd do. In short, we've resorted to letting Elias experience the dreaded "crying it out." As Neal tweeted the other day, "Crossed a parenting line last night. What do you do when the baby cries in your crib, in your arms, is clearly exhausted? Let him cry." That just about says it all.

Backing up a bit, however, you might remember that up until about three and a half months Elias, though he battled the daytime naps, was a pretty good night sleeper, going to bed pretty easily after his last feeding around 9 or 9:30 and waking up just once to eat again around 3 or 4 in the morning. On a really good night, he'd fall back asleep pretty easily until about 7 or so in the morning (his exact wake-up time is actually a bit fuzzy to me now). That was his usual pattern from about 6 or 7 weeks until we returned from our trip to San Diego in early October. Everything fell apart at that point. Elias started waking up several times a night for mysterious reasons. I bought the book The No-Cry Sleep Solution and read it cover to cover during a car trip to visit family in Connecticut. We never actually did the full-on logs, 10-day plan, or progress reports, but tried to implement some of Dr. Pantley's suggestions over the next couple of months, such as tweaking our bedtime ritual, introducing a "lovey", and, here's the deal-breaker, putting Elias in his crib while he was drowsy but not yet asleep. We tried, we really did, and I'm sure there was a window of opportunity for this kind of thing at some point that we missed, but it seemed virtually impossible to put Elias in his crib in any state other than deep sleep. Our "soothe to sleep" strategy mostly involved me swaddling and then bouncing and shushing him for about ten to fifteen minutes. I'd wait for this little exhaling thing he'd do after his eyes had been shut for a few minutes, bounce a couple minutes more, then very carefully transition him from my arms to the crib. For the most part, he'd stay asleep but more and more often lately, he'd wake up and I'd have to start all over again. I didn't mind helping him to sleep, but the starting all over again was getting a little frustrating, especially when he'd wake up as many as five or six times a night and require this little routine every time. I had to go to bed by 10 just so I could get about five or six hours of total, interrupted sleep by the time he was awake for the day around 6:30 or so.

But during the month of December it seemed like we were making some progress. Very, very slow progress but progress nonetheless. Elias had slept through the night, from about 7:30 in the evening until about 6:30 in the morning, no waking up, two or three times since the six-month mark. One of those nights he was even in the sleepsack! When he was swaddled, it was usually with one arm out or very lightly swaddled and he'd wake up in the morning with both arms free. But last week was downright brutal. Elias seemed to have taken a huge step backward, waking up every couple of hours, and it taking us two or three tries to get him back to sleep each time. Daytime naps disappeared completely. He didn't seem to be teething and ironically, while his sleep patterns had experienced a serious backslide, his spit-up decreased dramatically. So it didn't seem like we could blame it on his reflux, either. Finally, on Thursday night (or rather around 2 a.m. on Friday morning), I believe it was, after Neal and I both tried for almost two hours to get Elias, clearly exhausted but not hungry (mostly uninterested in the bottle I eventually offered him), recently diapered, temperature checked, back to sleep with no success, I felt helpless. We hit a wall. I didn't know what else to do, so I placed him in his crib, gave him his lovey, rubbed his belly, and told him I loved him, then I laid down in bed and listened to him cry for the next 30 minutes. He slept until about 8 the next morning and, fortunately, woke up his usual way - cooing and babbling to his lovey and a mirror that hangs in his crib and he greeted me with a smile when I got up and went to fetch him.

Now, I'm not going to sugar-coat this process nor am I claiming success just yet. But in the spirit of full disclosure that this blog seems to have, for the most part, maintained during pregnancy and beyond, I wanted to write a post while we're in full-on sleep training mode. Listening to Elias cry for 30 minutes sucks. There's no other way to put it. I feel physically ill. But I have to admit, so far at least, I thought it would be worse. I've heard horror stories about babies crying two or three hours before finally falling asleep. And we'll see what happens next time he's teething or following our next trip. But I felt desperate. We're employing Dr. Weissbluth's suggestions from this book (trying instead to "ferberize" Elias only lead to intensified crying each time we'd go in and check on him) and I have to agree with one of the "practical points" in the book that explains how "sleep problems in children may cause maternal depression." As always, there are far worse things we could be dealing with as parents, but after three months of this "sleep regression," "depressed" is the word I'd unfortunately use to describe how I've been feeling the past couple of weeks.

So where do we stand? Well, Elias has yet to cry for more than 30-40 minutes before falling asleep. On Sunday night I wasn't sure CIO was going to work. After about a half-hour of crying, we decided one of us should go in to check on him, make sure his head wasn't crammed into the top corner of the crib, that sort of thing. Neal checked on him and then his crying intensified with a vengeance after he left the room. A couple minutes later it sounded like he was gagging so I rushed in, picked him up, and he threw up at least the entire contents of his last bottle onto the floor. I stood there holding him in the middle of the room, both of us crying while Neal dried us off and then proceeded to rock Elias back to sleep. He woke up a few minutes later, fussed for a few minutes and then fell back asleep on his own. We'd decided that we should proceed with the plan but for that night at least, considering he'd pretty much emptied his stomach before falling asleep, err on the side of feeding him should he wake up in the middle of the night. Sure enough, he woke up around 1:30 and started to fuss a bit, but before I could even wake up enough to remember the plan he'd fallen back asleep. We had to wake him at 8 the next morning since we had morning plans. Last night was better in that, although he cried a few minutes longer, he never really got to the point of down and out wailing and as an added bonus, there was no vomiting. He was asleep by about 8 and slept until about 7:30 this morning. I might add that he's been unswaddled, in a sleepsack instead, and has managed to roll himself onto his tummy every night and during every nap since the sleep training began. Once again this morning I woke up to find him on all fours, a big smile on his face as soon as he saw me. Honestly, how this kid doesn't remember the trauma of the night before is beyond me, but I'm grateful for it.

As for naps, those have been a little hit or miss. Yesterday was a busy day so Elias napped mostly in his carseat. As for today, I put him down this morning, after he began to show tired signs, he cooed for a few minutes, fussed for a few minutes, and then slept for about an hour. This afternoon was a little less successful. He did the same thing he did in the morning, slept for about 20 minutes, then woke up crying. I'm still not sure what to do if we're successful at getting him to fall asleep on his own but he wakes up crying shortly after. Do we start all over or let him cry? I chose to go in and soothe him back to a sleepy state, then return him to his crib (he was clearly not rested yet). He of course cried pretty hard for a few minutes before falling back asleep and staying that way for a little over an hour.

We'll see how tonight pans out. Stay tuned...

go bears

Elias finally fits into an outfit we've had for over a year, a 2007 Christmas gift from a certain enthusiastic grandparent who, it turns out, had been stashing away baby clothes for who knows how long. The sleeves are a little long and there's some room to grow in the pants, but otherwise, I think Elias looks pretty sharp supporting his parents' alma mater.


Other wardrobe firsts include Elias's first pair of jeans, courtesy of his Aunt Marty, another item of clothing we've had since before the lad was born.


I had to layer the orange top over a long-sleeve onesie. That's actually a top Neal and I bought at a Carter's outlet in Bend, Oregon, during a spring break family visit last year. What were we thinking buying something summery that we knew - or should have known - he'd be wearing in the dead of winter? Fortunately, the layered look suits him well.

A final non-wardrobe first:


Baby's first game of monopoly. Elias didn't seem too interested in the game (which, I might add, is now played with millions on plastic instead of paper money) although he was fascinated each time I rolled the dice. I couldn't help but be suddenly very aware of all the small things he'd like to get his little hands on, not only as we played the game, but looking around my brother's basement in general, something I really haven't thought much about until recently, now that Elias is working hard to creep and crawl. Just when we thought we had this baby thing figured out...

progress report: spit-up and solids

A friend recently asked me how Elias's reflux has been. She added that she hoped that my not mentioning it much lately was a result of it getting better, not because the topic of sleep has taken precedence. The answer is a little bit of both, actually, and I figured we were due for an update from the spit-up factory. In short, Elias is still spitting up a fair amount throughout the day, but it has gotten better over the past month. I remember Thanksgiving weekend being a particularly spitty one and planning on seriously venting at our GI follow-up appointment the week after. At that appointment we decided to switch his meds yet again. I'm not even sure I ever blogged about our switch from Zantac to Prilosec, after the Zantac seemed to suddenly stop working. After four or five weeks on Prilosec without seeing significant improvement we decided to give Prevacid (same type of drug as Prilosec - another PPI - different brand) a try and it seems to be dong the trick as far as the irritability part of reflux goes. Reflux meds only deal with the irritation from the acid traveling up - and sometimes back down - the esophagus. They don't directly reduce the amount of spit-up, although they have been known to indirectly help out in that department. Something about babies regurgitating less as the esophagus begins to heal. And it does seem like that may be what's happening and/or Elias is finally beginning to outgrow all this. He seems to be most spitty later in the day (fatigue seems to be a factor, making sleep that much more important) and when we visit my brother and his family, really the only traveling we do on a regular basis (and I thought dealing with a spitty baby was annoying in the comfort of my own home!).

But what about introducing solids, you ask? Surely, babies don't spit up once they're no longer on a liquid only diet, right? Wrong! For starters, the consistency of the pureed baby food we're starting Elias on isn't that much thicker than the formula he drinks. And secondly, he's still getting most of his sustenance from the bottle, so he may not spit up after a meal of cereal, fruits, and veggies, but his spit-up after a bottle that follows a bit of pureed sweet potatoes, for example, will be orange in color. Orange spit-up! Fun!

To be honest, though, while I still have moments when I feel like I can't wipe up one more spit-up puddle, I'm a lot more relaxed about the whole thing now than I was a few months ago, when I was sure we'd be over this by month four. In fact, I took him to Trader Joe's the other day, one of his first adventures sitting in the front of the shopping cart, and just as a couple of women in line were commenting on what a cute baby he was, a decent amount of spit-up spilled out onto his hoodie. He was completely unaffected by it. I looked at the ladies and smiled, acknowledging their compliment, as I reached for the burp cloth. This sort of thing happens all the time. It kind of reminds me of that scene in the movie Four Christmases when the baby throws up on Reese Witherspoon's character (watch for it toward the end of the trailer).

So that's where we are as far as the spit-up factory is concerned. I assume he'll stop spitting up eventually. He has to, right? Right?! Oh, and if you suspect that your little one might have reflux, I highly recommend taking a look at this book.

While we're on the topic of digestion and starting solids, I'll just add that I recently explored the world of homemade baby food. We've been using Earth's Best cereal and a few jars of food so far, even though I had this romantic fantasy of myself pureeing fresh, organic fruits and vegetables, free range meats, etc. Not only do I pretty much hate to cook, but how am I going to squeeze this into an already busy day? I barely have time to feed myself some days! But then the KidCo food mill was demonstrated for me and I thought, how hard can it be?


I've only pureed one sweet potato so far, but I have to say, it was pretty easy. And economical. I pureed 8 two ounce servings from just one sweet potato. Even at organic produce prices, that's a lot cheaper than 75 cents or so per two ounce jar.


Initially, even though Elias seemed to enjoy the store-bought version of pureed sweet potatoes he's sampled previously, he didn't seem too impressed with Mom's cooking, more interested in playing with it instead.


But I've since experimented with watering it down a bit (thinning it with formula seems to create an inedible mush) and, even though he continues to make funny faces for awhile at the beginning of a feeding, seems to like it well enough.



So far Elias has sampled both rice and oatmeal cereals, sweet potatoes, carrots, bananas, apples, and pears. We have a little oatmeal cereal and fruit in the morning and some rice cereal with a vegetable (so far just sweet potatoes) in the afternoon. He seems to prefer the oatmeal over the rice cereal and fruits, not surprisingly, over even the sweetest of vegetables. We're going to try something green this week. In addition, occasionally I'll put a piece of fruit in one of those mesh feeding bag teether things for him to gnaw on between feedings.



I thought these things were pretty pointless when I got them, but they seem to satisfy his need to do nothing but "chomp" on something for at least 15 minutes each day. Whatever works, right?

all business

It's late and I should really be headed to bed, but Neal and I just watched the documentary The Business of Being Born and I have to write a few words about it. Otherwise, I'll just lay in bed thinking about the film and re-processing my own birth experience. Actually, I'll probably do that anyway, but at least I can check blogging off my mental to-do list.

In a nutshell, in the end, the film was more balanced than I thought it was going to be after the first 15 minutes or so. Initially I took issue with what I sometimes sense is a confusion of the terms responsibility and control. We can educate ourselves about the process, our options, the percentage rates for various procedures, but at the end of the day, you really don't have complete control over how the experience will unfold (the director's own experience is a perfect example of this, and I'm glad they included it in the documentary). There was one interviewee in particular going on about love hormones and monkeys that I felt crossed a line. Obviously, just because your labor's been augmented or perhaps you had to have a c-section does not mean that you love your baby any less than the woman who labored without medical intervention, at home in her tub.

All that said, I couldn't help but think of my own birth experience and - I hesitate to use the word regret - the couple of things that stand out in my mind that I'd like, if possible, to do differently next time around. For example, having been given pitocin and, about 20 minutes later, an epidural, I really had no choice but to labor on my back in the lithotomy position. It didn't seem like the pushing process was necessarily hampered by being in this position, but, especially once our doctor lowered the bottom half of the bed in preparation for Elias's entrance, I not only couldn't really feel what was going on down there (although I could feel the contractions toward the end), I couldn't see anything either. Then, because they suspected meconium in the amniotic fluid, there was a bit of a delay - although I'm sure what felt like several minutes was mere seconds - in moving Elias up to where I could see and hold him. So, even though it never dawned on me the first time around, assuming any future births go as smoothly as the first, I'd definitely like to have a mirror on hand and will demand that that baby be plopped on my bare belly asap.

It's a powerful film and initially I thought, man, I'm glad I didn't watch this before giving birth. But I actually think it would a great thing to watch if you're expecting. As our awesome labor nurse said when I tearfully agreed to getting an epidural, there's no reward for a "normal" or "natural" birth. Beware of the righteous woman who leads you to believe otherwise. But watching a water birth take place at home is an amazing thing and it reminds me how incredible the process is, how much our bodies can endure, and that can indeed be pretty empowering.

Anyway, anytime I watch something like this, or spend an evening blogging about Elias or uploading pictures or video, it makes me want to go in and wake him up and "smoosh" him (a friend's term...I think it's a cross between squish and smooch). I'm sure he'll give me the opportunity at least once tonight.