First Christmas in Chicago Married with a Baby

So the gas people were still here all day.  Oliver and Daddy and I went to 11a.m. mass at St. Mary of the Angels after Oliver awoke very groggily at 10:30.  I nursed him in the church lobby and then he was very good all through mass.  We sat behind a family of 7.  They were well-behaved and there was a 2-year-old from their family romping in the aisles adorably.  After mass we came home and I made ornaments for Nolan, Sophia, Isabella, & Anthony.  Then we left for the Delises' house.  

Oli's First Christmas Eve

It is now Christmas Day at 3:38a.m.  I'll explain why I'm up now, later.  

Phil had to work today, so Oliver and I were upstairs all morning by ourselves.  Ma and Pa had their hands full downstairs getting everything ready so I couldn't send him down, even though I was up to my ears in work myself.  The kitchen smells foul with every dish and pot known to man in the sink, dirty from 2 days before or maybe more...  and Phil's present was still not finished and that was my top priority.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I have clogged ducts again-- this time in the other breast.  I just got over mastitis, in fact I finished my meds like 2 days ago, and now breast number 2 is clogged-- but I don't have a fever yet so maybe I can avoid it?  So all day I was tired and in pain and trying to clean and work on the present and occupy Oliver myself.  My only hope was that Bradley would come in and take Oli from me and occupy him...  but his flight was delayed until mid afternoon.

So Oliver was really clingy today and only wanted to sleep with me.  Oh no comp running out of battery.  More later.

Dec. 25th 1:29 p.m.

Now where was I...  ok so yesterday I had tons to do and oliver was clingy and just wanted to nap with me so I couldn't get anything done, but he wanted to nurse while he napped and that was actually inconvenient but good for my mastitis so I spent like half the day nursing him.  The rest of the day I spent making Oliver's gift.

continuing, dec. 27th 12:05 a.m.

Ok so here we try again to finish the post...  welcome to life with a baby, right?  never get anything done.  Ok moving on then.  So Oli and I nursed half of xmas eve and didn't get much of anything done.  But after some scrambling I did finish what I needed to of Phillip's gift-- a warhammer game board-- and Phil came home and helped me bake broccoli squares for Carol's birthday "cake."  Of course I did it wrong; totally forgot about the cheese until the end, so I had to melt the cheese on top and it ruined the whole texture of it.  But all's well that ends well and it turned out tasting ok anyway.

Christmas eve morning, phil's parents smelled gas so they called the gas company.  2 fire engines arrived and didn't find anything and Oliver was nursing so I couldn't go down and take pictures.  Then the gas people arrived and they were still there when I was posting this at 3:38a.m.  And they were there all day Christmas as well!

Early Teething and Sleep Habits

Oliver will be 3 months next week and it is sooo hard to believe.  According to Happiest Baby on the Block he is about to complete the "missing 4th trimester" and will be officially "ready to be born!"  I can't believe it-- already!  I'm going back to work in only a few short weeks-- part time-- and it seems much too soon.  Perhaps I should've put it off till after I've stopped nursing?  Oh well; it's like having a baby, getting married, buying a house-- as in all major decisions in life, there's never really a "right" time.

Anyway so at his 2m checkup he weighed 14lbs9oz and he's easily 15lbs now.  So I suppose it makes sense that as the rest of his body is maturing beyond his age (getting to be such a big boy) so are his teeth!  I swear a few weeks ago he was gnawing on stuff and I said to Phil, "Man he looks like he's teething...  but they don't teethe this early, at just over 2m, do they?"  Then one night-- Dec. 11th-- Oliver nursed for SIX hours straight.  That's one heck of a growth spurt, right?  So I called the pediatrician and the lactation specialist, Gloria, told me he was probably teething.  Wow was she right!  So I broke Sophie the Giraffe, the Land of Nod high class teething toy, out of the packaging and gave it to Oliver.  He started teething away on it straight away.

Teething to Sleep

So at about the same time that Oli started teething he also started sleeping through the night until 5ish in the morning to eat and then asleep again till 8 or 9.  Wonderful!  Only bad thing is, the teething makes it hard for him to FALL asleep.  Poor little guy!  First we gave him tylenol, on the recommendation of the pediatrician.  But we couldn't very well  drug him every night.  So the next night I tried rubbing peach shnapps on his gums to numb them.  But he LOVED the shnapps so he lapped it right up before it could do its numbing job.  Next we tried Motrin, on the recommendation of Kelly, the pediatric nurse who lives on the block, but everyone told us that it's really not to be used under 6months and our OWN pediatrician didn't tell us to use it...  so even though the motrin worked like a dream, we decided not to use it again.  I tried rubbing cognac on his gums next.  Oliver didn't like that at ALL so it got to numb the gums a little bit.  But it only worked for a minute or few.  

Now I have to go pay attention to my Oliver and finish this post another time!

Latest on my family's life

As I titled this post I noticed that it hasn't been often that I've said "my family" in reference to my phil-me-oliver family.  Usually it was in reference to my parents, John, and me.  I guess when Phil and I got married it didn't seem like a family yet; 2 people?  It seemed incomplete and Oliver seems to make us into a family.  Strange because I always tell my students that there are all kinds of families and some are huge and some are very very small even 2 people...  but I guess it's hard to believe what I'm telling them myself because growing up 2 people never constituted a family for me.  I think it's important for kids to view 2 people as a family though because what if they grow up and realize they're infertile or something and for whatever reason can't adopt?  I would hate for them to think they couldn't be a family.

1 Year Wedding Anniversary Approaching

This should be a big anniversary, that 1 year one.  Still in the honeymoon period of our marriage, still all happy and having climbed over the initial hurdle of the first adjustment to living together...  I actually know a friend-- Georgina-- who has completely mapped out her entire married life seriously-- I mean she has the wedding all planned out from the dress to the food, figured out payments for musicians, seriously eeeverything.  And she doesn't even have a boyfriend!  I never planned like that for my own wedding even though I knew who I was marrying for years before the marriage.  Now I'm trying to plan for an anniversary present with only a few weeks' time and my brain feels like  a dried up raisin.  I definitely wanna give something meaningful and sweet to my husband but can't think of anything that won't either cost lots of money or take lots of time, neither of which I have "lots" of.  I'll come up with something good though.  I really just wanna go out and spend a wonderful day together!  If Oliver wasn't nursing I wouldn't mind so much but I don't want him to be stuck with a bottle all day all of a sudden once.

Oliver's Sleep Habits Lately

So By going out as soon as he gets fussy at 5 I eliminate fussy time on the whole.  We went out tonight and he fell asleep as soon as we were out the door within 1 minute despite the cold slush and freezing rain (I was frickin cold but he was just fine and toasty warm in his carseat).  Then we came back and ever since he's been eating, sleeping, eating, sleeping, and being very happy.

I think that the best way to keep him happy is to make sure he gets his 4pm nap, and make sure he's home by 6 or 7 so he can go to sleep for the night.  But really ideally he should be home by 4 and then in for the rest of the night excepting his nightly outdoor walk at fussy time (whenever that turns out to be-- 5, 6, or 7) maybe to a nearby store or something.  But not out anywhere in the evening.   That makes it rather inconvenient for people who wanna have us over for dinner or see him after work but oh well.  I read about how to not be tied down with a baby while sleep training but it doesn't work for oliver.  He's not stupid-- he KNOWS when he's in a foreign place and he wants to either be home nestled in his own co-sleeper, or he wants to be awake (and fights sleep angrily) to see all the action in the new place.  Covering him with a blanket, singing to him, soothing him...  they don't pull the wool over his eyes that easily.  Oh well; I have so much to do at night I don't mind being home in the evenings.

Wow

These blogs take a long time.  I dont' know where people find the time to keep them up daily.  Holy moly.

Commencement

I am always trying to journal and I never get around to it, but I recently realized I'm trying to do so many things-- keep a feeding, diaper, sleeping log for Oliver, a dream log for myself, and journal about my daily life and thoughts.  Maybe I can do it all just by making a blog and just including right here, all that stuff.  I don't expect anybody else to read it and am not writing to entertain or inform, but it's a good forum for thought if anyone should for some reason care to look.

So my baby is now 2 months old, as of yesterday, and next month I'll have been married a whole year!  Everything has gone by sooo fast.  But it's not bad.  Just fast enough to give ya whiplash.  In terms of the marriage, things couldn't be better; Phillip was SO gentle and kind to me when I was pregnant-- he did eeeverything, all the housework, made the food, basically if something required more effort than a sneeze, he did it for me, and boy did I need and appreciate it!  And he's a great dad so far.  He gets discouraged and impatient sometimes when Oli keeps crying constantly and won't shut up, but Phil's so cute and always keeps trying.  I try to encourage him and explain to him that I'm with Oliver all day and he's not so not to worry-- he'll get used to it and is doing a great job.  Phil holds Oli, changes him, chats with him, and makes up the strangest songs for him!  Phil discovered last week that Oliver likes to practice standing on Phil's lap and that will entertain and shut him up for many minutes.  Ingenious!

LIKING MOBILES

Like clockwork on his 2 month birthday, Oliver suddenly started liking his mobiles.  I don't know if his vision just now reached far enough to see them clearly or if he just got old enough to be amused by spinning objects in the air...  but it's so funny how it happened exactly on his birthday.  he can be amused for many minutes looking at those mobiles, and until a moment ago when Phil came home and Oliver suddenly started fussing (Phil's got him now and is singing to him so he's more calm), he was looking at the mobiles while I typed this.  I have to get up every minute to re-crank the mobile (ya'd think for the 40 some dollars ya pay for it they could get the thing to work for more than 30 seconds but oh well), but it's totally worth it to get something done and not have to hold him-- he's 14.9lbs as of yesterday's checkup!

THE GREAT BANK ROBBERY

Oliver had QUITE the 2 month birthday.  It all started at the bank.  Oliver was getting his 2month checkup yesterday, and since he came home sick (cold symptoms) after the last checkup and hep B shot, I wanted the morning before his 2 two-month-checkup shots, to be perfect so that his whole day wouldn't totally suck (it does suck to have vaccinations on your birthday!).

Well his Great-Aunt Chris is in town, so I sent her and Grandma Carol off with him in his stroller to take a walk, and they decided to take him to the bank.  Oliver loooves being outside, and riding in the stroller is fun too so this sounded like a great idea.  The bank is just around the corner which means the walk would be about a block long which in this weather is good.  

Weeeell off they go to the bank and apparently Oliver is sound asleep.  They're just ready to leave when all of a sudden this bank guy announces that there's gonna be a lock-down and nobody can leave because the bank was just robbed!  OMG!  Apparently this woman who works there named marilyn got held up (although I'm told that no weapons were produced so I don't know what they mean by "held up") and there was some kind of note involved, and a couple grand was stolen from the bank.  Goodness all that fuss to rob a bank and all they get is a lousy couple grand?  Not worth it at all.  But anyway I digress.  So some time later (I don't know how long but Oli was back in time for his 2 hour feeding) they were all allowed to leave and nobody was hurt and all in all the bank only lost a couple thousand dollars, but I think it's pretty cool that Oliver witnessed (asleep or not heehee) a bank robbery on his 2 month birthday!

THE 2-MONTH CHECKUP

So then Oliver got an hour or 2 of rocking chair time with Grandma Carol and he screamed through the entire session, apparently wanting more entertainment then "rock n talk", but oh well most babies get stuck in a machanic swing or daycare or something for hours, and I'd rather him scream in his grandma's arms than in a swing or nursery with 15 other children.  Then I took Oli to get his shots.  

I have been dreading the 2 month checkup for a month.  I love my pediatrician and everyone at her office, but I am not so much a fan of the shots.  I can brave the moment of screaming from the baby (last month oliver was sooo brave, screaming and getting red for a moment but sound asleep by the time we reached the car) but gosh he was so lackadaisical and sick and miserable I absolutely dreaded this exam.  

MY QUESTIONS

Well we got there and I asked the pediatrician my questions:

 "Why does his left eye always ooze?"  

"Because he has a narrow tear duct.  Not a problem unless it continues past 9mts.  Massage under his eye."  

Then I asked, "How do I avoid him spitting up on himself and awakening when he's on his back in his cosleeper?"  

I was told to put him in his carseat and put that in the cosleeper.  The doctor said not to let him sleep on me because she's had 2 patients have accidents (dont know if they resulted in death or injury) with that-- one got rolled over on and another fell onto the floor.  Well I guess i took her advice mostly because we did the car seat thing for most of the night and it worked well.  But I still sleep with him a bit.  I do it about as safely as possible I think.  I sleep with him on the outside so phil can't roll onto him and he's a bumper for me so I couldn't roll onto him if I tried, and the cosleeper's right next to the bed so if sooomehow (and I don't know how since my arm is a bumper to him) he rolled off the bed he'd only roll 3 inches onto the cosleeper where he's really supposed to be anyway, ironically!

REACTION TO THE 2-MONTH VACCINATIONS AND "FUSSY HOUR WITH OLIVER POOLE"

The pediatrician said that all babies have fussy periods between 5 and 9pm at night.  Interesting.  She said if it's horrible I can give him infant tylenol, which we didn't have (we'd been using mylicon which doesn't seem to ever help but we keep trying like pathetic dogs licking our wounds as if it's gonna make it any better...) so they gave us a sample.  Oliver did ok yesterday-- he took a bath after his checkup (I refused to let germs from the sick kids who'd been breathign in the office all day, linger on his body and make him sick like last month) and was good, and then remained good until evening when he went absolutely BAZURK.  I told Phil we should call an exorcist.  Seriously though he was red and furious, obviously in sharp pain, every tiny movement seemed to hurt him no matter where we touched him even though his shots were only in his thighs (2 nurses had come in and given him his shots ont he count of 3 at the same time so he wouldn't get 2 rounds of misery; very kind!  I was impressed.).  My mom never sees him at this hour and we were having my parents over for dinner with Chris and phil's parents, and my mom walked Oliver and looked super-scared when he creid and she asked if he was hurt and I said "No, welcome to 'fussy hour.' with your host, Oliver Poole!"  But really he'd never been thaaat bad before.  He was just miserable.  It lasted for several hours.  Everyone tried calming him.  Phil, me, tracy (she was there for dinner too), and every relative except my dad (coward!) and to no avail until he finally cried himself to sleep in Phil's arms after everyone left.  I think that when a baby's sick he really doesn't want big crowds around.  I think crowds are only good when he wants to be entertained but at night when he's fussy anyway, people need to get out for him to be happy.  Anyway we popped him in his carseat and he slept there most of the night.

THE MORNING AFTER THE 2-MONTH SHOTS

Oliver slept ok last night, though whenever he awoke for a change or milk, he cried no matter how gently I handled him (and honestly it's sooo hard to be gentle when you're half asleep at night!  I did my best but who knows it could also have been partially my fault?).  But not bad.  And he was acting sore but way more himself now, not beet-red screaming like earlier, and not listless like last month.  

So in the morning since he was acting fairly normal just slightly fussy I figured well we can stay home and he'll be bored and fuss or we can go out and hopefully he'll sleep.  So I took him to Northridge for mass and Fr. Rocky mentioned him in his homily which I absolutely loved.  He was talking about how people are always worried about when the end of hte world will come and how Fr.  Rocky's 100% sure that the end of the world for US will come within the next 100 years...  except for perhaps Oliver Benjamin Poole who's young and may live longer.  Heehee.  I wonder if the boys even knew who he was talking about.  But there was only one baby in the room so they probably figured it out.

TONGUE TRICKS

Oliver was good all through mass and didn't even awaken until the consecration and then was quiet and good.  We got home and that's when I learned that Oliver liked tongue tricks.  Up to now he wasn't very interested in funny faces but this morning when I stuck out my tongue at him and started flicking it back and forth the way annoying 2 year olds do all the time because they think it's just sooo funny-- well Oliver thought it was funny too!  Only he's not an annoying 2 year old who's spitting all over the place, so it's actually cool!  Oliver tried to do it himself I think.  He keep sticking his tongue out but couldn't really master the flicking.  But he smiled a lot!  Then family came in and talked to him and eventually he got disgruntled and I gave him a bath...  which made him more disgruntled...  

SLEEPING NOT-IN-SOMEONE'S ARMS...  I WON'T HOLD MY BREATH

I can appreciate that he needs to learn to put himself to sleep.  I understand that sleeping in people's arms is not always desirable.  That's cool.  But on the other hand, he's too young to self-soothe (or so say all the books), so I'm not supposed to let him "cry it out."  But if I put him in a crib or co-sleeper or something, he'll just cry until he's picked up even if it takes hours.  and I've tried everything-- leaving him alone, staying with him, shushing him, singing to him, pretty much everything I can think of.  Well today for 2 hours I kept him in his crib and he just fussed.  He tolerated it for a while and then would fuss and then would look at the mobile, as if willing it to start working...  and basically he just didn't sleep until it was time to eat and then as soon as he was in my arms he started to sleep!  So after he ate I put him in his co-sleeper and he woke right up.  By now he was over-tired and fussy and that is the woooorst and being over-tired is no better than sleeping in someone's arms in my opinion, as both are against the "healthy sleep habits happy baby" book, which is apparently the bible of sleep training.  So I just held him and let him sleep in my arms.  What am I supposed to do?  I tried.  And I'll keep trying and one day he'll get it.  It's not like he ONLY sleeps in people's arms-- he'll sometimes sleep in his bouncer, swing, or car.  And goodness he's only 2 mts old.

I talked to the super-mom Mrs. Gomez about co-sleeping.  She has 8 children and they all slept in her bed because she had no crib, and she said that was fine.  They went from her bed to the toddler bed and they've grown into decent adults and she never had any problem.  Honestly I tend to think she's right.  I mean yes I appreciate that a baby can get attached to its parents if it only sleeps with its parents...  but on the other hand, this "having your own room" thing is really an American idea, not practiced in the rest of the world and I'm not sure it's the most natural thing.  I think that things happen in their own time, and that Oli may just be a clingy baby and while I don't mean to over-indulge him...  I do think that maybe all things happen in their own time eventually.  When he's old enough to handle sleeping alone he won't wanna be with mom and dad anymore.  I don't believe he'll come crawling into our bed when he's 6 years old all the time.  I think he'll be so excited to be a big boy and "finally" have his own room!  I don't know.  It's just...  the time I spent in Africa I realized how different Americans are from other places in the world.  In Africa nobody has their own room, and there's no crib or anything.  Babies sleep with their parents.  And given that the average african family has 14-16 children, I'm thinkin that SIDS is not too big there, sleeping with their parents and on stomachs and all!  

All in all, I think I'm just not an extreme parent, and maybe a little less paranoid about these particular issues than most parents.

MATTRESSES LINKED WITH SIDS?

On the tummy-sleeping topic, our friend Mrs. Coad says that Australians have wiped out SIDS entirely and the way they did it was that they figured out that mattresses that are old can leak a kind of gas that kills babies who are on their tummies breathing it in all the time.  Hmm.  Could be!

ELIMINATING THE FUSSY TIME?  MY HYPOTHESIS

So Dr. Hercylak says that babies are typically fussy from 5-9pm, eh?  Well then, here's my latest mission.

If I can entertain Oliver from 5-9, and focus on him exclusively, only doing stuff he likes, will that postpone the fussy time or will it eliminate the fussy time?

My hope is that it will eliminate the fussy time entirely.

I started out tonight.  I took Oliver out for a ride outdoors in his stroller to American Science and Surplus as soon as fussy time hit after Oliver had finished eating at around 5.  Oli stayed awake the whole time and was very happy.  Then home we came and he practiced standing on my lap, we danced to holiday music on 93.9, we roamed the apartment, he watched his mobiles, and he was very happy until Phil came home.  And somewhere within that period he also napped a wee bit and ate and had a few diaper changes.  We eliminated mooost of the fussing.  Very interesting.   I'm gonna keep going at this and see how it goes.  I wish the weather would always cooperate since he loves being outside so much!