I picked up some sensible books on getting Baby to sleep. They're not doing much for us, though. We put Mowgli to bed when he starts acting tired and close the door and plug our ears. If he's really tired, he might sleep six or seven hours, with or without a feeding along the way. The last couple of days, he hasn't napped.
Today, at last, I stuck him in a car seat to take Daddy to a bus stop and drove for perhaps ten minutes. Kid has now slept for some three hours. Ah the serenity!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Upsetting News Tidbits
Three news stories put up blips on the Mom Radar yesterday, and I want to share all three. I'm not sure which is most upsetting.
First there was the Pedophile Pediatrician. Moral of the story: stay with your child at all times, I suppose. I can only figure that a huge number of parents figured doctors know best and children always say they're scared of getting hurt at the doctor's office. And then the videotapes were found.
Then there was this sorry incident: the woman who starved her one-year-old son to death because her religious leader told her not to feed him. I just absolutely cannot imagine doing this. I mean, what makes it seem more reasonable to believe that your mother and stepfather were offering your son to Satan than that they were showing him the stars? What makes it seem sane to starve your one-year-old for not saying "Amen" on demand? This is the sort of thing that makes me want to read some Connie Willis stories, perhaps aloud to Mowgli, just to remind myself that this is rather outside the Christian norm. The real kicker for me, though, is that the mother was supposed to nurture the child's body to bring him back, although she wasn't supposed to nurture him when he was alive.
Then, silly me, I watched The Rachel Maddow Show. Mowgli will probaby consider her Aunt Rachel, as her voice will be familiar to him from the womb. Yesterday's attention grabber, courtesy msnbc's transcript:
And did you hear Harry Reid talk about—an incredible conversation he had with a constituent who owns a restaurant, a lovely couple and they had a baby and they had good insurance, really good insurance, covered the birth. The baby was born with a cleft palate, and they were so devastated, but the doctors say, “Don‘t worry, we can fix this, we can fix this.” It‘s easily done. And they then got a note from the insurance company: your baby has a pre-existing condition, and therefore you have to pay for this.
Er. Yeah. I'm not crazy about the "pre-existing condition" thing in the first place, although I understand why it's there, but applying it to newborns? Life is a pre-existing condition. Companies could get away with never insuring a baby from now to eternity.
Apparently to be a mother is to worry and get outraged. I also have to wonder if an insurance company will retroactively refuse to cover the pediatric visits from that first story on the grounds that the services provided were not in their plans. Sounds like a tasteless joke -- I don't mean it as one. I'm just wondering where the boundary of the outrageousness really lies.
First there was the Pedophile Pediatrician. Moral of the story: stay with your child at all times, I suppose. I can only figure that a huge number of parents figured doctors know best and children always say they're scared of getting hurt at the doctor's office. And then the videotapes were found.
Then there was this sorry incident: the woman who starved her one-year-old son to death because her religious leader told her not to feed him. I just absolutely cannot imagine doing this. I mean, what makes it seem more reasonable to believe that your mother and stepfather were offering your son to Satan than that they were showing him the stars? What makes it seem sane to starve your one-year-old for not saying "Amen" on demand? This is the sort of thing that makes me want to read some Connie Willis stories, perhaps aloud to Mowgli, just to remind myself that this is rather outside the Christian norm. The real kicker for me, though, is that the mother was supposed to nurture the child's body to bring him back, although she wasn't supposed to nurture him when he was alive.
Then, silly me, I watched The Rachel Maddow Show. Mowgli will probaby consider her Aunt Rachel, as her voice will be familiar to him from the womb. Yesterday's attention grabber, courtesy msnbc's transcript:
And did you hear Harry Reid talk about—an incredible conversation he had with a constituent who owns a restaurant, a lovely couple and they had a baby and they had good insurance, really good insurance, covered the birth. The baby was born with a cleft palate, and they were so devastated, but the doctors say, “Don‘t worry, we can fix this, we can fix this.” It‘s easily done. And they then got a note from the insurance company: your baby has a pre-existing condition, and therefore you have to pay for this.
Er. Yeah. I'm not crazy about the "pre-existing condition" thing in the first place, although I understand why it's there, but applying it to newborns? Life is a pre-existing condition. Companies could get away with never insuring a baby from now to eternity.
Apparently to be a mother is to worry and get outraged. I also have to wonder if an insurance company will retroactively refuse to cover the pediatric visits from that first story on the grounds that the services provided were not in their plans. Sounds like a tasteless joke -- I don't mean it as one. I'm just wondering where the boundary of the outrageousness really lies.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Westminster Watching
Mowgli may just be his mother's son, at least as far as dog-show watching goes. We sat on a blanket on the floor and did fun things, sitting and standing and tummy-time, and watched the rerun of Westminster's first groups this morning. Since I grew up with Smooth Collies and have shown, worked sheep, and done SAR with German Shepherd Dogs at various times in the past, I was happy to see him so fascinated with the introduction to the herding group.
Of course, eventually he wanted to get off the soft blanket on the floor and be fed again. The blanket didn't go to waste, though. Dustin, the show dog of the house, liked watching Jimmy Moses handle "Meg."
Monday, February 15, 2010
Baby Books Leave Stuff Out
The book says Mowgli is the right age to discover his feet. He is indeed doing new things with them, though he's been kicking his bath toys with great accuracy for a couple of months. Now he also grasps the bath scoop between his feet to raise it to his hands, then pours the water inside into his mouth. Yay, baby! Luckily the soap is entirely edible, or so claims the bottle. He seems to like the taste of highly dilute Over-Tired and Cranky formula.
He has also learned to seize his incoming fresh diaper monkeylike with his toes. Then he gives a mighty heave and attempts to fling it across the room. I have learned to swiftly anchor it beneath his butt before he's managed the grab. He's heavy enough to make a good paperweight against his own strength.
Nobody warned me that either of these behaviors were on the list of possibilities. The baby books just have charming pictures of babies grasping their feet or perhaps stuffing those tasty little toes into their mouths. Mowgli appears to feel that these babies lack imagination.
He has also learned to seize his incoming fresh diaper monkeylike with his toes. Then he gives a mighty heave and attempts to fling it across the room. I have learned to swiftly anchor it beneath his butt before he's managed the grab. He's heavy enough to make a good paperweight against his own strength.
Nobody warned me that either of these behaviors were on the list of possibilities. The baby books just have charming pictures of babies grasping their feet or perhaps stuffing those tasty little toes into their mouths. Mowgli appears to feel that these babies lack imagination.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Blurry Baby Toes
That's blurred toes, not blurred baby. This picture is now nearly two months out of date and the foot has grown enormously!
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
How To Buy A Baby Carrier
We're giving up on our third attempt to have hands-free baby carrying. I'm beginning to feel somewhat expert in what can go wrong, so for babyless gift-givers, I offer the following guide to purchasing a baby sling or pack for expectant friends.
1. When you go shopping for this, take along your pet monkey (well-diapered, of course). If you do not have a pet monkey, borrow one. If you cannot borrow one, I suppose a ten-pound sack of sugar will suffice.
2. See what successful parents in your baby-goods store are wearing. Try those first.
3. Open the package and find the directions. Put the pack on yourself. If you cannot get into or out of the pack, don't give it to someone else.
4. Put the surrogate baby in the pack. If you have the monkey (active baby), it should not come out the top. If you have the sugar (drowsy baby) it should not come out the bottom. If you wind up with a monkey touring the cribs or sugar all over the floor, something has gone wrong, and you should consider a different pack.
5. Walk around a while. Determine whether you can adjust the straps yourself, whether the monkey is furious from a pinching binding, or whether you end up leaving a trail of sugar once its paper sack has been chafed through. Also, see if the pack is giving off fumes.
If you follow this procedure, it is not a bad idea to bring along a partner. If you need the partner's help to put on the pack, it's no good. Partner should be there strictly in the capacity of photographer.
1. When you go shopping for this, take along your pet monkey (well-diapered, of course). If you do not have a pet monkey, borrow one. If you cannot borrow one, I suppose a ten-pound sack of sugar will suffice.
2. See what successful parents in your baby-goods store are wearing. Try those first.
3. Open the package and find the directions. Put the pack on yourself. If you cannot get into or out of the pack, don't give it to someone else.
4. Put the surrogate baby in the pack. If you have the monkey (active baby), it should not come out the top. If you have the sugar (drowsy baby) it should not come out the bottom. If you wind up with a monkey touring the cribs or sugar all over the floor, something has gone wrong, and you should consider a different pack.
5. Walk around a while. Determine whether you can adjust the straps yourself, whether the monkey is furious from a pinching binding, or whether you end up leaving a trail of sugar once its paper sack has been chafed through. Also, see if the pack is giving off fumes.
If you follow this procedure, it is not a bad idea to bring along a partner. If you need the partner's help to put on the pack, it's no good. Partner should be there strictly in the capacity of photographer.
First Food
We made rice cereal last night. After a week of having a cold, I wasn't doing as well as sometimes on the milk production. Too, Mowgli has been watching us eat with great fascination for a month now. He would watch our spoons and make little mouthy faces. By his reckoning, if not quite the pediatrician's, he was ready to give this food thing a try.
He seemed to have a good time. His father did a round of feeding while I finished eating and that seemed to go best. I'd take a bite from my bowl of lentil pilaf, the baby watching attentively. Then Daddy would offer a spoonful of organic rice cereal and it would mostly end up on the inside.
Unfortunately, and contrary to much family opinion and lore, he didn't sleep any earlier or better for it.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Welcome to the MommyBlog!
It was inevitable. I write. I have a baby. Sooner or later, I was going to start writing about the baby.
Right now I'm juggling contractual requirements for a novella by my Evil Twin (you know, the one who writes the smut), a couple of back-burnered short stories, and breastfeeding. I'm learning to type one-handed while supporting a hefty little boy with the other arm, but I'm getting back into the flow of things.
In 2009, I was published in The Drabbler, Reflection's Edge, Emerald Tales, Crossed Genres, and Everyday Weirdness. I'm now in Crossed Genres' editors-choice anthology, awaiting publication by The Future Fire in early March, and hoping to hear back from a couple of vanishing editors. The Evil Twin publishes at Shadowfire Press.
As you might expect, every one of those stories was written before Mowgli came along. Why "Mowgli"? In an early ultrasound, he had his long legs folded up by his ears and his hands clutched close to his chest and looked quite like a little frog. It's not the name that will be on his college applications, but it'll do for the interwebs.
Right now I'm juggling contractual requirements for a novella by my Evil Twin (you know, the one who writes the smut), a couple of back-burnered short stories, and breastfeeding. I'm learning to type one-handed while supporting a hefty little boy with the other arm, but I'm getting back into the flow of things.
In 2009, I was published in The Drabbler, Reflection's Edge, Emerald Tales, Crossed Genres, and Everyday Weirdness. I'm now in Crossed Genres' editors-choice anthology, awaiting publication by The Future Fire in early March, and hoping to hear back from a couple of vanishing editors. The Evil Twin publishes at Shadowfire Press.
As you might expect, every one of those stories was written before Mowgli came along. Why "Mowgli"? In an early ultrasound, he had his long legs folded up by his ears and his hands clutched close to his chest and looked quite like a little frog. It's not the name that will be on his college applications, but it'll do for the interwebs.
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