It's arrived.

Well, it's here.

One of the beasts I've dreaded encountering the most.

The monster that books have been written on and talkshows have been dedicated to.

The legendary horror that I used to shake my head in sympathy at when I'd hear the myths and legends of encounters being whispered from other mothers' mouths.

It started emerging from the shadows every now and then, but its presence has been made known with a deafening roar and a sinister snarl.

The Picky Eater.

Look at the way it carefully analyzes its food offering to determine the worthiness of the sustenance even touching its fingers.

Before flinging it across the room in utter contempt, horrified that one would even allow the foul thing in his presence.  Even if the beast screamed "MORE! MORE! MORE" for the very same food only the day before.

And to make his point all the more clear- EVERYTHING the offending piece of food touched must be BANISHED from its presence!

Don't even think of trying to trick the Picky Eater by telling it a.) enjoyed eating the same food only yesterday b.) the food tastes just like the thing it ate minutes before- the Picky Eater knows better than this c.) something it will truly love if it would PLEASE just take one bite. The Picky Eater scoffs and roars at the word "please".  It's for the weak. 

And lastly, the great and terrible Picky Eater can smell desperation like a shark can smell blood.  All attempts at bribe and trickery will consistently be met with a look of disdain and utter refusal.

However, the Picky Eater will happily accept cupcakes in any flavor.



The Joy of Having a Boy

I think most people would describe me as fairly laid back.  I don't necessarily freak out about much, am fairly accomplished in the procrastination department, and just have a very c'est la vie attitude about life in general.

That is, until Jude came along.

The paranoia was ridiculous at first.  Those beginning weeks, I could come up with these insane scenarios in my head about what could happen.  For example, I remember saying:  "Don't use any scented lotions or perfumes, Jude may develop allergies or ADHD.  I don't want anyone wearing perfumey crap while holding my baby."  That's one of the milder ones.  Anyways, as Jude got a bit older, I relaxed quite a bit.  Even when he was hospitalized for RSV back in February, I kept my cool for the most part.

Then he starting crawling.

The kid was into everything.  It was a little harder to maintain my zen demeanor when my 8 month old was halfway underneath a couch trying to reach the lamp plug to pull it out of the socket.  But, I maintained composure and we've survived.

Now he walks.  Nay, RUNS.  The kid is a thrill chaser of the most extreme kind.  Daycare says that they spend half of their days running and catching him as he launches himself off the top of the toddler slide.  At home, if a door opens, he crawls at breakneck speed to try and squish his fluffy cloth diaper butt through it to get to two things he is obsessed with:  stairs.  and the dogs' water bowl.  It's as if these two things are constantly on his mind.  Oh, and everything can be pushed.  The baby cribs at daycare, chairs, toyboxes, dressers, anything.  If it's there, Jude will try to push it along...hopefully down some stairs if he could.

Daycare called on Friday.  They were in a panic.  Jude had fallen while running and his tooth cut through his entire lip.  Blood everywhere.  Come get him.

I flew to daycare.  By the time I got there, he was surrounded by three of his favorite teachers, happily chewing on an icey toy and enjoying the attention.  I could tell by the look in his eye he was already pondering what his next adventure was going to be. 

The cut was hardly bleeding by the time I got there.  It wasn't very big on either side, but due to the location of the wound, it was gaping open.  I took him to Children's Hospital emergency room where I spent two awful hours.  First they had to put a cottonball full of numbing agent on the cut, band-aided to his face, for 20 minutes.  Yeah, right.  They say nothing is impossible?  Trying to convince a one year old to not lick, pull, freak out that a cotton ball of numbing liquid is taped to his lip is impossible.  Sadly, that wasn't the worst part.  The absolute worst thing I've been through with Jude was yet to come.

The ER doctors strapped him to a papoose so he couldn't move anything, covered his face with a sheet so that just the wound was exposed, and held his head in place.  The sheer terror and look in his eyes while he kept them on me the entire time he was being stitched up will haunt me forever.  I could tell that he was heartbroken that I wasn't coming to rescue him.  He was too young to understand what was going on, all he knew was that he was being tortured and his mama was doing nothing to stop them.  It broke my heart.  I never want to go through that again.  But chances are, I know I probably will.

Three stitches felt like thirty years.  They finally let him free and he spent the next hour alternating between sobbing and doing this little hiccup/shuddering thing.  I felt awful.  He finally took a nap on the way home and I just wanted to pull over and kiss his little tear-splotched face over and over and tell him how sorry I was.

He was pretty clingy the rest of the day, but in better spirits after his nap.  By bedtime, he had rubbed or licked all of his stitches out (they warned me that this was probably going to happen due to his age and the location) and I almost felt like I put him through all that for nothing.  The wound has stayed closed, though.

Someone mentioned to me that the money you save not buying cutesy, frilly, pink things for a girl is made up in ER copays on boys.  How true.

Close-up of the stitches.  Jude worked the middle stitch out before I could even get a photo.  Please excuse the banana on his face.  He's anything but dainty when he eats.

And my little Hurricane Jude back to work as usual.  Pushing a stroller.  Into the cat. 

If I were to be graded in Juggling, I would get an F.

Gosh, I'm usually pretty good about keeping this blog updated, but I've gone a week without a post!  No, I haven't been lost in a pile of dirty cloth diapers (it's going REALLY well, by the way).  Things have just been insane.  I have a feeling this post is going to be a bit raw.  It's been so hard for me to juggle everything.  Lately I've been fantasizing about being a stay at home mom.  I love my job, truly.  It pays really well and I enjoy what I do.  But a full time career plus being a mother seriously leaves me no time to do anything else.  Nothing.  It's near impossible to keep up with the housework for some reason.  Yet, I see that other moms who work have no problems.  It makes me start to feel like there is something wrong with me.  I rarely cook, thank goodness my husband LOVES to cook and prefers it, because I don't have time to do it.  By the time I get home, 100% of my attention is on Jude for 2 or 3 hours before he goes to bed between 7:30 and 8.  Then, I do just the basic things like loading the dishwasher from dinner, doing some laundry, etc. at which point I am exhausted.  Then I usually have some sort of project that needs to be worked on (like this week, writing and addressing invitations to 150 people for my in-laws 25th anniversary party). Okay, so what about the weekends?  Excellent question.  Phil is usually doing something for his 80+ hour a week career (which I wouldn't change- he is SO awesome at his job and LOVES it), so having him watch Jude while I do something like scrub the floors is impossible on most weekends, especially in the summertime when his industry goes insane.  My son will MAYBE take a 45-60 minute nap in the mornings and a 30 minute nap in the afternoons.  I guess I just don't know how to do the deep cleaning stuff like washing windows, shampooing carpets, scrubbing floors, organizing closets, cleaning out basement storage, gardening....and the list goes on and on.  How do working moms DO all this stuff???  I guess the only option I have is to use vacation time from work while Jude is at daycare.  But then that is more time I will not get with my little boy.  I'm left wondering if I'm too attached to get things done when Jude is with me.  Have a created the baby who refuses to be left in an exersaucer to watch while I'm doing things?  I know I have a bright, inquisitive baby who wants to be a part of everything, but sometimes I feel like it's because I wore him nonstop and coslept with him and allowed him to be a part of all mundane tasks that now it has to be that way forever.

 I know I'm just rambling at this point and I am not blaming the way we parent exactly.  I'm just envious of all my mom friends both in real life and in the blogosphere that seem to be perfect.  Moms who bring home a great salary, cook, clean, and entertain while maintaining the perfect body, wearing makeup, always looking beautiful, and giving their husbands just as much attention as their children.  I feel like the only part of that I even come close to is the great job and nothing else.  I feel frumpy, chubby, disorganized, unkempt and frazzled.  I need to stop complaining and just try harder, but that's easier said than done- especially when I don't even know where to begin.

Part of why I just don't feel good enough has to do with the fact that I can honestly say my mother is damn near perfect.  Growing up raising two kids two years apart, she did it all: crazy fulltime career with insane hours and a husband who traveled two weeks out of every month on average, a perfect house- PERFECT, running us kids around to all of our extra curricular activities (if you knew me in gradeschool and highschool, I seriously danced for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week, nuts), and never forgot one single permission slip, dress down day at school, soccer practice, lunch money, nada.  Most days, I'm lucky if I don't forget my breastpump or purse, let alone remember anything else.

I know I'll figure it out and maybe just try to convince myself that perception isn't always reality (but this is hard when I SEE my other mom friends doing it all).  I can do this.  I can. 

Right?

This is going to be a long, long week.

So, Jude's cold is a little more than that.  It's an ear infection.  Poor little man.  He's had a faucet for a nose since last week and he started running a fever.  Phil took him to the doctor today and it was confirmed he had an ear infection.  His first one.  Daycare has a policy where he can't come back until he is 24 hours fever free.  This happened on the worst week ever. 

Since I got my promotion back in January, I've been working on this huuuge project for our biggest client and I submitted it to them today.  Not only that, but I have to give a big presentation on a product enhancement to the company on Wednesday this week.  Sooo not the time for my little sweetie to be sick.  Thank goodness for family.  My dad will watch him for the morning tomorrow so I can at least set some things up in the conference room I reserved to go over my presentation. 

That's not all.  Phil rearranged his day to pick Jude up from daycare and take him to the doctor.  In his hurry, he slammed his middle finger in the front door of our house.  That was this afternoon.  Cut to this evening and the pain was pretty much unbearable, his finger and fingernail were black and it was swollen up to massive proportions.  He is currently at the ER.  I feel awful I didn't go with him, but Jude is in bed and we didn't want to wake him.  My mom is meeting him there to keep him company in the waiting room.  God love her.

So yeah, the first day of the week was a little stressful.  But, I got my project successfully submitted before end of business today, which is a huge weight off my shoulders.  Now I just have to breathe and relax about this presentation I have to give this week and again next week (to people in the company who know way more than I do no less).  And I thought dancing in front of audiences for years and years was nerve wracking.  No way, that was cake compared to public speaking.

Fingers crossed my boys pull through and are as good as new soon and that this week of stress flies by.

Eek. I take it back, I don't want to grow up!

Mama Bear

This week is dragging. I have three projects due in mid-April. Big ones. I’m at the point where I should be completely stressing out, but I’m strangely not. I think motherhood has calmed me down a bit. I’ve taken a more c’est la vie approach to things and I think it’s totally improved my outlook. Before Jude, these projects would’ve completely taken over my brain and life. Now, I’m able to put work and family into the two separate entities they are supposed to be and I think I’m the better for it. Granted, I bolted awake in the middle of the night last night thinking about a portion of a software upgrade that I felt I needed to work on asap. And then I looked over at my son (who was sleeping peacefully in between Phil and me since I didn’t have the energy for sleep battles last night. FAIL.) and stroked his downy, blonde little head and fell back asleep.


That’s not to say that I’m completely zen about everything. Motherhood has also awakened the mama bear that I apparently had sleeping within me. Convictions I never knew I had come out with their teeth bared whenever I feel Jude or any other child for that matter, is being threatened. When I hear stories on the news about poor, defenseless children being neglected or abused, I choke back the intense feeling of wanting to vomit and I just find myself wishing the worst things on the person that did this to them. Then I hug my baby just a little tighter. I can now spot an uneasy situation from miles away and can avoid it quick as lightning, no questions asked. I no longer have qualms about telling people that I still breastfeed and spouting off the million benefits whenever someone challenges me as to why he is still nursing (It’s amazing how I’ll talk about my breasts with anyone these days.) Or when I politely tell certain in-law family members who try to give my kid meat gravy and ice cream that they need to remove their fingers from my kids mouth before I bite them off. People who knew me before I became a mom knew me as the type of person that would totally let things slide unless I felt very strongly about them….then watch out. Now, I’m much more assertive when I initially feel that I need to be, rather than just waiting things out. I love the fierceness just one little angel baby can bring out in a woman.

All in all, Jude is making me a better, stronger person.

Knock On Wood

I really hate to even "say" this out loud, but here goes.  Jude has slept through the night TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW.  Now, if you follow my blog or facebook, you will know that this is something we've been battling for quite some time.  A quick background:  Jude has never slept for longer than four hours at a time consistently.  Sure, here or there he will go for maybe five hours, but these events are very few and far between.  As I've previously stated, when we brought Jude home from the hospital, Phil and I both agreed that we weren't going to let him cry it out.  I am not judging anyone who does, but we felt it just wasn't something we were willing to do, for multiple reasons.  I naively thought that Jude would definitely wake for the first 3 or 4 months, but he would eventually outgrow it and he would sleep peacefully through the night.  Wrong.

Once 8 months rolled around and I realized that Jude wasn't figuring out sleeping through the night on his own, I went to Borders (and didn't have a repeat breastfeeding/poopsplosion incident thankyouverymuch) and grabbed Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution (NCSS).  After Googling and reading what Dr. Sears (whose childrearing philosophies I have really gotten on board with) had to say, I decided this option would be the best for us.  It basically teaches to attend to the babies needs at night so they do not cry, but slowly wean them off whatever association the baby has with sleep so they can eventually fall asleep without it.  Jude had quite the perfect storm of elements needed in order to fall asleep.  I realized that I had set Jude up to have sleep issues when all I thought was that these things were in his best interest. 

First, Jude wanted to nurse before going to sleep.  He would latch on and his eyes would roll into the back of his head in pure bliss.  As soon as the sucking stopped, I would lay him down.  His eyes would shoot open and he would wail.  To replace my boob, I would put a pacifier in his mouth, which would suffice, and his eyes would roll back again.  Then, I would place his lovey in his hands and he would roll to his side and fall asleep.  Then, I would turn on his mobile that played classical music for twenty minutes and he would be out.  This was all well and good except for the fact that once the music shut off or the pacifier would pop out of his mouth or he realized that my boob was nowhere to be found, it was all over.  Sometimes this was two hours later, sometimes two minutes.  Oy ve.

Long story short, the NCSS did not work for us.  We tried diligently for a month.  The only thing that improved was that Jude started to sleep a longer stretch in the beginning of the night.  He went from waking up within the first hour to sleep for 3-4 hours and then waking up every 1-2 after that.

People with good intentions had all sorts of suggestions for us.  "You just need to shut off the baby monitor for a couple of nights so he can cry it out all night", "You need to stop spoiling him so much by carrying him around all day so that at night, he thinks he needs to be held then too", "Stop breastfeeding him and give him formula, you shouldn't breastfeed once they have teeth", "Put some cereal in a bottle and send him to bed with it".  Again, not judging what other parents have done because we all make parenting choices that are best for our own family, however, none of the suggestions people had to offer felt 'right' in regards to what would work for Jude. Therefore, I resigned myself to multiple night wakings until toddlerdom.

So this post doesn't turn into a full blown novella, I'm going to try to speed things up.  I decided to read Ferber's book, "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems".  The most I knew about Ferber was that his methods were associated mostly with 'crying it out', but someone told me that if for no other reason, pick up his book to read about all the information he has on infant sleep cycles and sleep associations.  So I did. 

Upon first picking up the book, I was surprised to see that he runs the Harvard Institue of Pediatric Sleep Disorders.  Okay, totally giving this guy a chance, he probably knows a bit about what he is talking about.  Holy moly.  I was floored reading about all of the cycles babies go through and that night waking is a necessity, ESPECIALLY in the early months since that is a main prevention of SIDS.  If a baby is sleeping TOO soundly and in a sleep cycle that is difficult to get out of, they can stop breathing.  It was nice to read an affirmation that an early infant sleeping through the night just didn't sound right to me.  Maybe Jude was more normal than abnormal.  Also, I didn't know that Ferber doesn't call for straight crying it out, but rather letting a child cry in intervals and then going in to check on him so he doesn't believe he was abandoned.  Ferber first states that you need to create the child's sleep environment into a sleep association- free environment.  The reasoning behind this makes sense:  because of the way a baby's sleep cycle is set up, they go through the multiple stages of sleep in shorter intervals than adults and have brief periods of waking.  Upon these periods of waking, adults are able to fall right back to sleep if everything is the same as when they fell asleep.  But say that you go through the brief wake period and sense that a light is on in the hallway that wasn't on when you fell asleep, you are instantly fully awake and investigate.  Same as a baby.  If Jude fell asleep with a pacifier in his mouth, with his music on holding his lovey and when he hits his wake cycle with the paci out of his mouth, music off and his lovey nowhere to be found, he is instantly awake because he feels he "needs" all three of these in order to go back to sleep.

Okay.  Get rid of sleep assocations.  We stopped with the music.  I nursed him before story time instead of right before bed.  I did lay him down with his lovey, but if he wakes up, he can easily find that so I didn't think that was an issue.  I also made sure to leave the room while he was still awake, without rubbing his back or anything since that would also be another sleep assocation.  It worked!  Well, for a few hours.  Basically, Jude would sleep from 7:30ish until about 11, wake up and want to nurse, nurse, nurse until it was time to get up at 5:30.

Cutting to a different topic that I think is the missing piece to the whole sleep mystery.  I think I'm starting to develop milk supply issues.  While Jude is at daycare every day, I pump 3-4 times a day at work to send breastmilk with him the next day.  I've been pretty proud of myself that Jude is almost 9.5 months and I'm still able to give him breastmilk 24/7.  (And it saves so much money!)  These past few weeks, I've gone from being able to pump about 16-20 oz in a day, and it has tanked to being able to pump 10-12.  I've done everything in an attempt to get it back up, I'm an expert.  No dice.  More to come another time.  By the time evening rolls around, I don't produce much since prolactin levels are the lowest in a body at that time.  I now believe that at least half of the issue is that Jude is seriously hungry in the middle of the night and since he isn't getting much milk before bed, he wakes up very often to "top himself off".

The last week or so, I've been giving him a 6 oz bottle of milk before bed and then I pump after he goes to bed.  This, combined with getting rid of his sleep associations has provided the breakthrough we so desperately needed.

Two days ago, I put little boy to bed at 7:15.  He briefly woke at 8, I settled him back down and he didn't wake up until 5:30 am.  WHAT?!?!  Of course, that didn't mean I got any sleep.  I was checking on him hourly convinced that something was horribly wrong.

Last night, he went to bed at 7:30.  Woke up briefly at 11:15 and settled himself back down and woke up at 4:30 am and I was able to settle him down again.  Not as great as the night before, but a SERIOUS, SERIOUS improvement.

I hope the trend lasts and that I didn't completely ruin things by talking about them.  I attribute this success to my education of sleep cycles for babies, getting rid of *most* of Jude's sleep associations, realizing my milk supply is starting to tank and finding alternatives for evening feedings, and the fact that Jude has cut 6 teeth in the two previous months and he is no longer waking up because of teething pain.

If you've made it this far, you're awesome.  I mostly just wanted to record our sleep story (so far, as the issue is clearly tumultuous) so I can show Jude someday just how much he put us through when I tell him he can't stay out all night - my sleepless nights thanks to him are in the beginning only.

My son doesn't sleep.

Jude has sleep issues.  Big time.

I've avoided doing any sort of sleep training this entire time for a few reasons.  For starters, I never believed that they were necessary.  To me, sleep training has always implied that this is purely for tired parents' sake and not in the child's best interest.  I'm now retracting my former thoughts on this.  Sure, I'd love a full nights sleep.  But to be honest, I'm so used to 6-7 night wakings (you read that right- and this is on a good night) that they don't bother me much anymore.  I guess my mommy adrenaline isn't 100% depleted.  I'm honestly worried about Jude.  It seems like he always has bags under his eyes and is so cranky at the end of the day, that he just isn't himself. 

First, a background.

In the very beginning, we started off with Jude in a bassinet next to our bed.  When he would wake, I would nurse him or change his diaper or attend to whatever need he had.  During the first four months or so, I never gave his multiple, often hourly, night wakings a second thought since that is what newborns do.  Once Jude outgrew the bassinet next to the bed, we decided we wanted to cosleep and have a family bed until he was a year.  I'm a fan of Dr. Sear's Attachment Parenting principles and thought this was ideal for us.  Being as I'm a fulltime working mom, I love that I can spend all my time with Jude when I'm not working by sleeping next to him.  The night wakings continued.  From four months on, all Jude really wanted when he woke up was to nurse himself back to sleep.  That's fine.  Bedsharing makes this very easy to do.  Once six months rolled around and he was still waking up about ten times a night, I decided that we would try Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution.  I was not willing to let my son Cry It Out, but this seemed like an answer I could definitely go with.  It was all about weaning a baby off the suck to sleep association, which Jude clearly has.  After a few weeks of doing this, the only improvement I've seen is that he doesn't fight initially going to sleep like he used to and will actually sleep for a three hour stretch in the beginning.  It was also around this time that we put Jude to sleep in his crib initially and then upon the first night waking after we go to bed, we bring him into bed with us.

Now we are at the present.  Jude is 8.5 months and he has now decided that naps aren't for him.  Daycare is lucky to get two twenty minute naps out of him.  He comes home cranky, tired, rubbing his eyes, and ready for bed at 6 pm.  I know this is all because Jude cannot self soothe when he wakes up for whatever reason.  The littlest noise in the world will startle him awake and he cannot get himself back to sleep without a breast or a pacifier.  I'm at my wits end.  I've heard things about Ferber and really mostly associated his methods with crying it out.  Someone who practices Attachment Parenting told me to pick up his book because it has really great information on baby sleep cycles and sleep in general and I can put other bits of his philosophy into action without resorting to cry it out.  So, this is where we are at.  Updates to follow.  If anyone has any advice, I would LOVE LOVE LOVE comments.

This parenting stuff sure is hard.

We are having a ....

I knew it! We found out on February 3. It's so funny, but I just knew it. I think the first couple of weeks I thought it was a girl, but after about three weeks, I couldn't wrap my brain around having anything other than a boy. Isn't it crazy how maternal instinct really does exist? I even told Phil that if the ultrasound tech said "girl", I was going to fall off the exam table. Sure enough, after the first scan, it was so completely obvious. This little guy wasn't shy at all! Good thing we wanted to find out, otherwise, we would've anyways! The ultrasound was amazing. He was moving all over the place and at one point, he started sucking his thumb and holding his ear with the other hand. I didn't think I could fall in love with him any more than I already have, but I surely did that day. It's hard to believe that he is going to be here in like 17 weeks. This time is flying by. The worrying is starting to kick in for me: how will I know what I'm supposed to do with a newborn? What if I fail him? How can we afford this? What about daycare? The worrying goes on and on. It doesn't help that I wake up every few hours during the night to pee and then just start worrying when I try to fall back asleep. I know we'll figure everything out, but I internalize most things by nature, so why should pregnancy/baby worries be any different? Okay, well now I'll post fun ultrasound pictures of my little man!