wonder(ing)land

It’s already been established that Christian’s first word was Hello, accompanied with a little hand on the ear with whatever object is around (box of tooth floss, a wooden block, anything small enough to fit his hand). I think the next word he learned was Jiji — while pointing to our super-big yellow cat. And there is the king of words Tata (dad in Bosnian) which he clearly pronounces, sometimes while looking at the picture of dad. As for mama, I’m a little unsure about this one. I think he’s calling mama on occasions when he’s very unhappy or crying. I can’t exactly with certainty ascertain that it means me but I’m guessing yes.

I wanted him to crawl longer. But he insisted.

I swear: Christian Winter says “halo” when he occasionally gets hold of the phone. It’s like “A-o.”

He’s been crawling all over the place but has keen interest in walking. Any occasion he gets to grab our hands and have us wobble behind him, he takes. It’s very very cute.

Well, it is just great that my son’s favorite toy is our home phone. I want him to enjoy something safer!

At 7.5 months, we finally have a little crawl happening! For the last week and a half, it seemed like it would happen anytime, but no go. We spent last week in Pittsburgh where I thought for sure he’ll get on his fours and go for it, but he really managed just a few roll overs to his destination.  But yesterday, mr Winter managed a few tiniest steps on his fours. Very very cute.

In other news, he learned how to clap. This happened last Thursday: Christian Clapping

Teething (photo by a nice lady at Mermaid Parade)

Christian turned 7 months on Sunday, Father’s Day. The very same day, I noticed that the two little teeth came in on the bottom. I expected a lot more fuss over it and maybe there was but it was hard to know why — our nephews were visiting so, as much as I tried, Christian didn’t get enough naps last week since we were on the move a lot. (I guess to make it up to me, he slept so well last night, that I had to wake him for his babysitter).

He also learned how to (kind of) get on his fours and he managed to get himself into a sitting position yesterday. All while continuing to be super cute.

It was a few years ago when I first heard the expression “sleep training.” I was walking in Park Slope when I overheard a conversation between two moms. One said “I think we’re going to hire that sleep trainer this week. Jack is going to hate it but I think it’s time.” I remember wondering why would anyone hate sleep training, in my mind I imagined some kind of a sleep clinic where you can get as much rest as you wish. I didn’t realize that Jack was an infant and that “training” involved letting him cry through the night (or two, or three…) in order for him to learn to fall asleep on his own.

The process can be gentle, sure. The baby may have the right kind of disposition for this sort of thing and just fuss a little before falling asleep. And voila, you have yourself a self-soother. Or not — and you’ll be leaving the house for the weekend with a babysitter enduring the hell of a night-long crying baby (one mom found her baby sleeping upright, clawing at the rails of the crib). This way, you’ll get the much needed rest and he will learn to sleep through the night, and be independent, self-sufficient. After all, it’s never too early to show the child that he was born into a difficult world where promises are broken and where you can’t trust anyone, not even your mother.

I didn’t get to do  a survey (though I would like to) and see how many of my mom friends are doing it, but it looks like all of our doctors are routinely recommending it. And we are falling for it. Yes, we all want to sleep through the night, and sleep training is not torture. Or so They tell us.

Chewing on some scallion

Mom isn’t always right. We didn’t give Christian Winter water, he didn’t start eating fish at 3 months and we don’t let him cry so because it’s “good for his lungs” (it isn’t, read here). But she is very often right. I love it when one of her advices works.

Mom said that teething babies like to chew on scallions. It’s what she’d done with us. We didn’t really need to go there until today. But Chris was stuck with crying baby while I was showering. Our regular suspects (finger, Sofie, chin) didn’t work. Chris then decided to go for it and, to our disbelief, he stopped crying.

Behold, our little 6-month-old son, teething on a piece of scallion.

This is crazy, but the last time I took a photo of Winter was more than a week ago. And I still haven’t transferred those last ones to the computer so I can show them around. I miss film and photos developed and printed on real photo paper.

In the meantime, just a sigh from a busy mother. Work has kicked into a high gear, the babysitter is doing great with the kid and life is just flowing and flowing.  Winter is now 4.5 months old, can crawl just a little while on his tummy (mostly backwards), possibly getting a tooth (and then again, maybe not), has a beautifully shaped little head (sleeping on his side mostly, I wanted to avoid a flat skull),  poops twice a day (mostly in his “toilet,” he’s aware enough not too go in bed when diaper free), wakes 2-3 times a night, goes to bed at 8 (well, we all do. It’s weird I know. It won’t last, but picture the rest!) and much much more.

Chris and I are, however, a little out of it, like it’s not our lives. He’s cooking and washing dishes, I work until late at night. We both coo over the baby whenever we can and try to hold hands as much as possible… when we remember.

A deep breath…. and back to water…

I hate plastics. Very dangerous thing, plastics. I’m using the word hate here, about plastics….

This stuff is everywhere. Take, for example, my breast pump. Many relevant parts are made of plastic, including the storage bottles. All this stuff is BPA free, but a) what’s replaced this BPA and b) what other unsafe chems live in that plastic and touch my baby’s food? I was dismayed, appalled and shocked when I opened a brand-new BPA-free six-pack of Medela breastmilk storage bottles to find them STINKING on something like acetone. Chris tried to comfort me: Maybe it will go away after sterilization. Well, it didn’t. After I boiled the bottles for 10 minutes (as recommended) the water and the pot took on the smell! I was ready to kill someone. Right now, they are “airing” out, but seriously, should I really believe that airing it out will get rid of this sh!t?

Baby toys are another one. I am supposed to give my child teething toys. Let’s see, what are my options. Well, there’s the polyvinyl chloride, made soft with something called phthalates and I get to mess up his hormonal and reproductive parts. Or maybe I should stick with hard plastic, or polyvinyl chloride made hard with lead, a neurotoxin? Or I am to believe that there is a safe bladi-bla-free man-made thing out there?

I’m not buying it anymore, they lost me. I despise everything my great-great grandmother wouldn’t recognize. Period. I’ve been applying this principle to food as Michael Pollan meant it, but now I’m wondering about using it on other stuff, especially baby toys. We’ll have imagination in concert with sticks, rocks and maybe twine…. Oh, that we could!

Dearest Christian,

I adore you. The weight of your little body makes me think of heaven. Then there is your special little smell and the most kissable cheeks: they kill me. I’m all over you all the time. When you close your eyes I can’t help but stare at your face, to hell with chores and work and the telephone. My sweet.

This week you overcame a cold with fever and a runny nose. You learned to breathe through your mouth a little. And then snored. When friends came over, you laughed and laughed. And today, for the first time ever, you fell asleep for a nap, all by yourself. I didn’t intend this, but you did it all by yourself and I’m so proud of you.

Sweet dreams baby.

Christian Winter

Ten weeks later, at 2.5 months, we’re doing as well as I expected. And I expected nothing but the best. But it wasn’t without challenges. Here’s a little catalog.

Breastfeeding: The first 10 or so days were awful. Think vice grips. Christian Winter was, for a short while, renamed to Torturer. But quitting was out of question. Now we’re pros, I can walk around like an Amazonian woman with him eating in the sling.

Elimination: It’s hard to tell how things will develop, but we’ve established some grounds for potty independence. At least few times a day, the boy pees and poops in the bathroom when we take him. He’s diaper free for a part of the day and we have fewer of those things to wash or throw away. We mostly use cloth diapers though while out, we do use the disposable ones (Seventh Generation brand).

Sleeping: This is as well as it can be expected. There is now one nighttime waking around 2am during which all three of us are in state of light sleep and multitasking, Christian eating, me feeding and Chris listening if he’s needed. But I’m still as sleepy as I can be and really should be doing that now instead of this…

“Hey, you know you’re having a boy, right!!!??? No, SERIOUSLY! She’s gonna have a boy!”

Living in our tony park slope neighborhood, residents will nod or smile or hold doors for a pregnant lady. Some will strike up a conversation and offer any advice they can to a new mother. Walking in downtown Brooklyn, folks are a little more vocal. Generally Latinos or men from the islands in strong accents…

(larger, dark skinned man with headphones on - dark jacket and mlb cap on sideways - keeping to himself leaning against a wall - comes to life when Alisa walks past and takes off his headphones quickly…)

“Hey!! You know it’s a boy, RIGHT? No, I’m SERIOUS! Look at her, you can TELL!!!”

Not 5 minutes later, we’re walking on Flatbush Ave., after dark. A black man in a parka walks past and stops short right before Alisa…

“Oh! You’re having a BOY!! You must be so proud! You can tell, you know? Look at how she walks - she walks UP! Her face held up high to the universe. It’s true!”

I’m perhaps most surprised that young kids of 18 or so are stopping us and telling us the sex of our child. I guess I figure it’s quite possible that these kids already have first hand knowledge of these things - I certainly never thought about these things before this year.

My mom told me the sex of our child even before I shared our sonogram news with her. She told me, “You don’t have to tell me, I already know.” Intuitive dreams figure very prominently on my mom’s side of the family, and she already had a vision of our baby boy. Alisa’s mom also had a premonition of Alisa’s pregnancy before we told her. There’s a lot that goes on in this world that is not black and white on paper.

“…U.F.O.’s, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, full-trance mediums, telekinetic movement, black and/or white magic, pyramidology, the theory of Atlantis, the Loch Ness Monster… spooks, spectres, wraiths, geists, ghosts?”

Oh BOY…

And here’s visual proof of our impending boy child - note Alisa’s torpedo-like profile - proof she’s carrying a boy

When I first developed an awareness and got set on choosing my OB/GYN (and all signs pointed to Eden Fromberg), I didn’t realize how lucky I would get. First, Eden advocated home birth. Second, she suggested I do prenatal yoga. And those two things set the course of my pregnancy.

I’ve been taking prenatal yoga classes at Lila Yoga (Eden is the founder) from my 8th week of pregnancy, twice a week (mostly). I don’t know how well I can describe the benefits I got from yoga except to say that I feel ready. And I would think that is the greatest endorsement.

Here’s my own imperfect version of the prenatal “Sun Salutation” we do at Lila (video engineered by Chris, from photo stills):

And then there are morning walks in Prospect Park, 3 miles at least 4 times a week (upping it as the B-day approaches). As the year progressed, I got more and more inspired. And who wouldn’t: the park is just beautiful this time of the year!

Week 37 belly

We are full term!

During our last meeting, our midwife said something striking: “The decisions you make about your child can haunt you for the rest of your life. It’s best if you know all the sides of the issue before making them.” She also said “trust your intuition.” We were talking about SIDS and about vaccinations (another sticky subject was also on my mind but I didn’t bring it up).

There is anecdotal, but not clinical, evidence that MMR (mums, measels and rubella) vaccine causes autism. Doctors say MMR is perfectly safe, while some moms report their children getting sick after getting it and then being diagnosed within autism spectrum or ADHD. In addition, there is a school of thought saying that antibodies introduced into the body through administration of a given vaccine don’t exactly reproduce the full cellular immunity that a body develops when it fights off the disease by itself. And there is a bunch of other stuff I don’t know anything about (and we know that little knowledge is dangerous).

Through haze, I remember being sick with some of those disease as a kid. I was out of school for a while and had red, pussy dots all over me. Parents made soups and cuddled me. I lied in a darkened living room and read a lot. I do not remember any pain (though, I’m sure there was some), just the feelings of love, care and freedom from school. It is a pleasant memory.

Am I being ridiculously idyllic about something dangerous? What’s at stake isn’t just our personal health, there are public as well as legal repercussions to consider.

The medical practice we are considering for the kid is “pro-vaccines” but they have a less aggressive immunization schedule than most other practices. This is supposed to make us feel better. We attended an information session and it turns out the kid would need to be vaccinated for 12 different diseases for a total of 30 pokes by the time he’s 11. More than half of these pokes will happen in his first year of life (17). Each of the diseases/vaccines has its own special quirks, so, I guess, we have to read up on them individually. There are few books on the subject on reserve at the library and we are going to an “anti-vaccines” information session next week.

I am of a heavy, heavy heart about this whole thing. Chris promised to read some books, though he did sigh and wished I was into architecture or Mayan ruins.

It’s a lovely day in Brooklyn. The rumbling, all-nightly rain stopped for just long enough for my morning walk around the park which was perfect in every sense. It was still dark at 7am and the wetness of pavement combined with freshly shed leaves from neighborhood trees made for some heart-stopping prettiness.

When I got back, Chris and I had to scramble (again) to make our place a little more presentable. The occasion? Why, it was the midwife visit day, of course!

Every time I see her, I feel like I can fly. She makes me feel so confident and secure, it’s like she’s sprinkling faerie dust on me.

Things are well: belly is perfect 34.5 cm (corresponding to my 35 weeks), blood pressure 104/65 (I seem to have an even pattern here), baby’s little heart regular (she lets me and Chris listen on her stethoscope),  his head is down, his back turned toward my left side (optimal: chances for posterior labor are smaller), weight gain at 20lb (can go 5-10 more by the end).

We have 2 more weeks before I can stop worrying about preterm labor (and replace that with post-term worry :-), but even at 36 weeks (as early as next week!), she’s confident to assist me at giving birth at home.

Magical!

In my pre-pregnant past, I had often and casually called other pregnant women big. I truthfully regarded being big a natural pregnant state and, frankly, a compliment. Rare is a woman who feels comfortable in her curves and pregnancy gives us the license to be just that: comfortably big.

Imagine my surprise when, during my 5th month, a causal remark from a relative (”Are you sure it’s not twins? You look big for 5 months”) hurt my feelings. Me? Hurt over a BIG remark? Impossible! But there it was. I scanned my memory trying to recall recently pregnant friends at 5 months, and yes, I was sure I was bigger. It didn’t help knowing that everything was going by the textbook: I was gaining an optimal amount of weight weekly (and even less than that on more than one occasion). This was my body, my normally flabby belly filling up with baby and its accoutrements. Oh, the predicament! I suddenly felt foolish for all that casualness with others.

I put off licking of my bruised ego’s wounds, hoping for redemption elsewhere. And it came: the hugeness continued unrestrained and I felt better with every bit that came. Ironically, the way out of this emotional inconvenience, was the course I was already on: getting bigger. Consequentially, random Big Remarks started rolling right off my back. There wasn’t even a twinge of hurt after a (male) co-worker yelled across the room that I was “ready to pop” and how he’d give this kid no more than two weeks, it was so “huge.” The time of devastation had long passed and the biggness became what I only intellectually believed to be the case: an indication of a new life inside itself; a miracle of life, if you will; an awesome thing a body is capable of doing.

Besides, I kind of I think I look cute…

Chris hasn’t stopped being funny. It’s just been coming on in small quantities that I’ve been collecting over time:

-”Lupe has been taking too many days off. I don’t want to dock her pay, but let’s have her come in already!”
On our messy house and our imaginary housekeeper, Lupe.

- “Good morning belly, good morning uterus, good morning amniotic sac, good morning round ligaments, good morning cervix!”
A semi-regular greeting he likes to do, possibly after he told the kid to hang in there.

- “Your body just knows it needs to wake up and research.”
On me waking up at 5am to resume reading the most recent birthing/parenting/nutrition book or magazine/web article.

- “A stitch in time saves us 5 hours of you being mad at me.”
On spending 10 minutes printing directions to the airport while running late. A very versatile, uber-applicable frame of mind.

- “As a metro-card swiper, I am paying for the best of the best. Will I really be getting the same kind of service from the A train as I would from the F train? I think not.”
Emulating Q&A session with a prospective pediatrician we attended with a group of especially entitled Brooklynites.

“I trust Alisa with mold. Unlike her opponent, she knows mold and she will sure up our bathroom. There will be no additional budget spending, mold is already paid for.”
On cleaning the bathroom.