Sweet potatoes

Here is the video of her eating sweet potatoes.

And also a video from last week of her hanging out in the crib. I posted on Facebook but forgot to put it here.

And just hanging out, sticking her tongue out:

Baby pterodactyl

Poor sweet pea. Her cold has taken a weird turn which has worsened her cough and congestion and made her lose her voice. All day today Chad and I have joked that she sounds like something you'd see in Jurassic Park. But in reality, she is pitiful. Her cry is just heart breaking.

She is eating okay (yay, sweet potatoes were introduced today; I'll post a video later) and sleeping her usual amount. So we aren't too worried (Dr. Google is about as helpful as taking her in to the clinic right?). She was supposed to have her 6 month appointment last Wednesday but that got canceled because her doctor had a sick child. So we will be taking her in Friday afternoon.

Solid

I always wonder who's reading this blog. It's a strange thing to know people are reading it but you don't know what they're thinking or how they're doing (you can update me on your life, too, you know). However, it's become clear to me that Alaina must be sneaking on the iPad and reading my posts. Remember how I have been complaining that she isn't gaining weight? Well, she must have decided that she didn't want to concern us anymore. In the last week, she went from eating an additional 20-24 ounces of milk/formula per day to eating 30 ounces. She even wakes up in the middle of the night hungry. And she seems hungry all.the.time. Holy growth spurt, baby. On Tuesday she weighed 15 lbs 8 ounces. On Saturday she weighed 16 pounds 2 ounces.

We decided we could no longer hold off on introducing solid food. I thought we would start with avocado or sweet potato but we decided to start with oatmeal cereal because it tends to be gentler on digestion and be fairly low-allergen. She.loved.it. Oh man, she knew just what to do and couldn't get enough. Our roly poly chunky monkey is back!

So funny!!

Seriously. See the jump in how much she ate in a week?? Insane.

 

 

Feet are still pretty yummy! 

She has also been doing this crazy dance where she shakes her head and moves her body. She's so silly. 

 

It's mostly when she's overtired. We try not to let her get so tired but it's hard when she refuses to nap...

Little girl loves to play. She's really been loving this little stacker toy that plays "twinkle twinkle little star." She mostly wants to eat the star (because she wants to eat everything??).

 

She's just a little doll. So crazy about her.

Another wasted copay

...I wonder if our therapy clients often think similarly?

So many times we leave the pediatrician's office (similarly to the vet or our own doctors, frankly) and say "well that was a waste."

Chad called the nurse yesterday just because Alaina is continuing with her cough and congestion and she is also not gaining weight, possibly due to the excessive spit up (which thankfully has slowed down) and stomach bug. We have her six month appointment next week but the nurse suggested we should go ahead and bring her in, especially due to her lack of weight gain. This was a little annoying given we figured they would say she's fine. But what else are they going to say if you call?

Her weight today (15 lbs 8.4 oz) was basically the same as it was on August 29 (and September 14 and September 20). The doctor was pretty unconcerned, saying she looks healthy and he can still pinch her rolls (he joked that she's not malnourished). He still called her a chub. He said he wasn't negating any concerns we had and that we should continue to monitor it but overall, he wasn't worried. I wouldn't call myself worried. It's just disconcerting for her to drop from the 76th percentile in weight to the 40th in less than two months.

And it is sad that she's losing her rolls. We love our chubby wubby roly poly.

He briefly considered sending her to OKC for a swallowing study to make sure she isn't aspirating but then changed his mind. He said unfortunately the cough may last awhile and he wasn't worried about her raspy, rattly breathing (I told Chad she should be Darth Vader for Halloween). He commended me on combo-feeding past six months. So that was nice.

And that was it.

And then I dropped her off at daycare and a few hours later they called to say I needed to come pick her up. Their rule is three (for lack of a better term) "bad diapers". So we've just been hanging out this afternoon, doing laundry and trying to slightly tidy up this trainwreck of a house since we have family coming to visit (my house may never be clean again). Good thing I had already moved my appointments for tomorrow since she can't go back to daycare for at least 24 hours after the last "incident." I swear, group child care both allows me to and completely prevents me from working...

Monday morning pick me up

These videos an pictures shot this weekend (after Alaina and I were both recovering) certainly made me feel better. Hope they do the same for you!

 

 

Happy six months + when will we be well again?

Our baby girl had her half-birthday today. This also means I hit the six month of nursing. Not exclusively but it's something. I still have mixed feelings about how I continued as well as the end drawing near but for the moment I'll just pat myself on the back.

In celebration, we both got the stomach bug. Yay. She seems to have a much milder case than I do. She's still happy and perky. Not so much on my end. But for that I'm thankful. I'd rather be sick than her have it full force. That said, I'm ready for the plagues to be lifted off our house. One, both, or all three of us have been consistently sick since August 29. Stupid germ factory daycare. Ah well, the research suggests that babies who attend group care centers have strong immune systems and miss less school in kindergarten and first grade. Which is good...but is small comfort tonight.

:)

At this time six months ago, I was checked into the hospital, waiting for the arrival of Miss A. Hard to believe it's been six months since our lives have forever changed.

Ugly Secrets

So there are entire blogs and websites out there that are devoted to the ugly truths of becoming a parent, parenting, etc. Of course you don't discover this until after you've experienced one of these things and you do a middle of the night google search (FYI--"baby sweating during crying" provides useful information whereas "baby sweating" leads to terrifying results suggesting babies with excessive sweating is somehow connected to SIDS). Then you discover an entire world, a secret club if you will, of people discussing these things. In general, I vacillate when it comes to disclosing extremely personal information in detail on this blog--partly because I'm not sure people really want to read it and partly because I'm not sure I want people to read it. But in this moment, I'm feeling like it could be useful.

I've been thinking about it a lot but it became particularly clear last week as I was gearing up for my trip to Michigan. On Wednesday, I developed extreme anxiety. In general, I am not a terribly anxious person. I jokingly say I'm neurotic but it's mostly high self-consciousness (a separate facet from traits like anxiety or depressiveness--my personality background is showing). But Wednesday I became almost paralyzed with anxiety. Since having Alaina, I have noticed some obsessive compulsive type symptoms--when I put her to sleep for a nap or a night, if I say "I'm putting the baby to sleep" or "I'm putting the baby down," I feel like I must clarify "for a nap" or "for the night" because otherwise, it sounds too much like putting an animal to sleep. It's a weird compulsive thinking process. But it turns out, those symptoms can be pretty common. Even post-partum OCD is not completely uncommon (I do not think I have OCD or even post-partum OCD, but this is definitely not typical behavior for me). However, last week, it was taken to a new extreme. I became completely convinced that I was going to die. This lasted for about a day and it was an obsessive thought that would not leave. I even had 'flashes' of Chad having to care for Alaina alone, Chad finding some piece of clothing or hair barrette of mine and getting upset, Alaina being raised without a mom, her getting married and wishing that her mom could be there, etc. It was extremely intense. And I couldn't tell anyone. I felt like telling someone would make it more real and therefore, make it happen. It was to the point that I questioned whether I could even go on this trip. As a psychologist, I know more than any one person should about deep breathing, relaxation training, cognitive restructuring, and mindfulness. None of it was useful. Not one bit. What did help was two things--1) hearing from friends and family that they would be thinking of us while I was gone and praying for me and for Chad and Alaina, and 2) trying to hold on to some piece of the future. A symptom of a panic attack is this thought of death or a shortened future. Because I kept thinking all these awful thoughts, I was really struggling to imagine the future. I was finally able to grasp on to two images, on the way to Michigan, I could imagine certain parts of the conference--specifically a dinner that I was going to on Saturday night. I couldn't imagine past Saturday until I actually got to Michigan. Then I was able to imagine coming home on Sunday. I imagined coming in the door and Chad holding Alaina (she was wearing her cupcake sleeper) and kicking her legs in excitement to see me. Now clearly that is not what happened (I never would have imagined Chad would be vomiting shortly after I arrived home!), but it got me through. I was also able to imagine telling my friends on Monday how silly (but completely compelling!) these thoughts were.
So imagine my surprise to find out that many of my colleagues who are parents have had these same experiences! Mine was more extreme than most but it was slightly less unheard of than I expected. No one tells you this. It wasn't in a single book I read and I've never seen it on TV. So there is secret #1. You will become a basketcase. You may already be a basketcase, in which case, I imagine it just gets worse.

But this led me to think about lots of other secrets that I've uncovered along the way (sort of like discovering "impostor syndrome" in graduate school!!). Here are a few of them, in less detail. Of course these are all just based on my experience but they are experiences that I've found on blogs and websites/Facebook posts that suggest they are not unique to me.

• If you experience the loss(es) of a pregnancy or a baby (October 15 is Pregnancy and Infant Loss day so this seems especially poignant), you will never get back the naive excitement of having a child. Things becomes bittersweet. "Relaxing" doesn't really happen until the baby begins to move and even then, it can be hard to feel connected. 
• The first few weeks of having a newborn are insane. I didn't even feel like a human being again until Alaina was six weeks old and I still don't feel normal. There are definite moments of "what have we done" which are followed by extreme guilt. It's all normal. I still haven't figured out how to take a shower if Chad is at work and the baby is at home. I either wait until he comes home or wait until the baby is at daycare. Those moms that have clean houses, are put together, and take their kid out when they're under a year old? Yea, I totally don't get it.
• Those first few weeks are also (at least for me) filled with fears that you never imagined. Fears like accidentally bashing your child's head into a door frame, tripping and falling and crushing your baby, etc. You also may hear your child crying when they are completely asleep in another room.
• Nursing is hard. It's really important to know this. It's interesting because some breastfeeding classes refuse to say this--they don't want to talk about things like blocked ducts, mastitis, D-MER, thrush, hormonal changes, supply problems, etc. because they are afraid it will turn people off breastfeeding. Instead what it does is alienate people into thinking that it's going to be easy and natural and they have failed if that is not their experience. And if you aren't able to exclusively breastfeed, there is often a lot of judgment or perceived judgment about your decision about what is best for your baby and family [Many of those judgmental people have not read the independent studies themselves and just tout a "breast is best...at all costs" mantra and that is not helpful for anyone--it's detrimental for true breastfeeding advocates and it's completely awful for moms who wanted to breastfeed and couldn't. Don't be that person.] I add in perceived judgment because you may also experience feeling judged for bottle feeding in public when in fact, no one is even paying attention [The same is true for nursing in public.] 

So I guess that's the main secret. You may feel guilty and incompetent. About everything. All the time.

Home sweet home

Well, we all survived my first trip away from home! I have never been so glad to land in Oklahoma. Unfortunately I didn't get the welcome home I'd been dreaming of all weekend. Instead, I came home to Chad throwing up and Alaina crying inconsolably. I was so sad. But all is well now. Chad's stomach bug has passed (and Alaina and I seemed to miss it!!) and Miss A seems quite happy that I am home. I was also worried she would no longer be interested in nursing but she picked that back up (though my supply suffered from the trip, which is a whole other post that wouldn't interest most). I had a lot of worries, actually pretty extreme anxiety, before and during the trip--so much so that I've decided to devote a whole blog post to the ugly secrets no one tells you about parenting. But first I need to finish this post. :)

Unfortunately Alaina still has her yucky cough, which is sometimes accompanied by the massive spit-up incidents. We are doing everything we can (steam, vicks baby rub, nasal aspirator, saline spray, sleeping upright).

Here we are Sunday night. Pretty obvious we both had been crying...but those times need to be documented, too.

After having been gone all weekend and Alaina spending most of the day in daycare, I decided I wanted to hang out with her a bit. So I picked her up early from daycare this morning and took her to work with me. She was so exceptionally good. Then we came home early and played. It was a really great afternoon. It made me excited that the weekend is almost here!

Some evidence of her rolling belly to back. Her teachers at daycare say that she rolls from back to belly in her crib; we just haven't seen it yet. 

Making it

I'm almost halfway through with my trip. No breakdowns yet on my part. It's hard, though. Someone brought a baby close to Alaina's age to the conference so that was hard to see (the parents are both psychology faculty members).

Chad & Alaina survived the first night without me and I'm so proud of them! They had a rough start with a lot of screaming and crying (on her part) for several hours, refusing to go to sleep, be soothed, or entertained. I can only imagine how tough that was. But she went to sleep just before 9 pm and stayed asleep until 6 am.

I called daycare and they said she was having a good day and she had taken a couple of naps this morning. So that's good. I have checked in on the webcam a few (hundred) times and once she was sitting on the ground with the boppy and it looked like she was pushing a ball hanging from the ceiling. I felt so proud--such a big girl! I wish I'd gotten a picture. It was adorable.

I won't say I regret coming. I'm glad I did but my head is definitely not all here. But I'm sure that's to be expected. It was probably too soon. I still haven't found the personal/professional balance that makes me happy but I believe it will come with time.

Anyhow, I had a little break from the conference so I wanted to update. Here are a few pictures from before I left and from daycare (she's in the aqua bumbo seat).