The Z Files: Month Six and Seven

Zane turned seven months old two weeks ago, on the 21st. (The same day I turned 35, actually).

Because I am rarely in the possession of two free hands and time to write, and because I am such a perfectionist and also very wordy - I have not managed to finish a letter here for Zane for month six or seven. So instead, I am hereby switching the "Z-files" formats to a bulleted update / newsletter so I can make sure to get all these milestones recorded. I am writing shorter, more frequent letters to Zane in a private journal. Because I know you were wondering, right?

Since he turned six months old Zane is like a whole new kid. I swear he turned into a "toddler" overnight. I look at him and wonder where my "baby" went. I would be more sad about this except for the fact that he is just so delightfully interactive right now. I have a friend who says about his daughters that every stage was his favorite stage, just as he would think the current "stage" was his favorite, his daughter would enter the next stage and he would find himself newly and equally delighted with this new place. I get this now.

Growth:
-At his six month check up Zane weighed 18lbs5oz and he was 28.25 inches "tall". He was in the 93rd percentile for height but had dropped to the 50th percentile for weight. Lean and tall. He has definitely grown more in the last month but I haven't measured him. He is fitting mostly 12 month clothing now.

Physical Development / Mobility:
- By six months he was regularly sitting up on his own and actively crawling.
- By seven months he was crawling with speed and he was regularly pulling himself up on any surface available, including our pant legs.
-The last two weeks he has been taking little steps while holding onto something and is standing while supporting himself with one hand.
-He makes his way all over the house this way, crawling, pulling up, stepping along, sitting back down, crawling some more. I am both immensely proud and a little dismayed by all this mobility. My cuddly baby is now constantly on the move and exploring and I miss when I could hold him for hours at a time. It makes me appreciate our cuddle-time before bed all the more though!
-As a result of the constant pulling up and (in the beginning) constant falling, Zane has learned to brace himself and catch himself when he feels he is falling. He went from multiple daily head "bonks" to almost none in just a week's time.
-He is really good with his hands and loves to turn things over and over and try to figure them out. He picks up balls and puts them in the holes of one of his toys, he drums on everything and loves playing his little piano or shaking his tambourine. He loves pushing buttons and pulling on things.
-He is crazy strong and has almost ripped the toys right out of his exersaucer (especially that bee who won't come out of her beehive - what is up with her?!).
-He gives us quite the formidable wrestling matches over changing time and being strapped into his high chair. I have had to come up with songs for his car seat, changing time, getting in the stroller, and sitting in the high chair. Once I sing the song he calms down and becomes more accommodating - otherwise it's pretty much like trying to wrestle a wild greased piglet. :)

Verbal Development:
- In the last two months we have heard the steady progression of Zane's vocal expression. It began with chattering repetitively: "bababababa", "lalalalalalal", "nnnnnnnaaaaaaahhhhh", and has developed into more consistent meaningful sounds: "Dadadada", "Hiiiii!", and "MMMMMaaaaaahhhh Mmmmmaaaaaahhhhh". Oh and then there's the "rasberries" and the high pitched excited scream, and the high pitched happy chattering, and the groaning and mumbling to himself and always the ever present laughter. I think his favorite "word" to say is "Dada" - he repeats it throughout the day, especially when he is happy and playing. And I can ask him "where is Dada?" and he will look for his Daddy. He mostly says "Mmmmmaaaaaahhhhh" for me when he is tired, sad, or hurt. But the other day, about a week ago, he was playing and he turned and smiled at me and clear as a bell pronounced: "MaMa!". I am pretty sure I passed out from sheer delight at that moment.

- He also knows sign language for "all done" and he will shake his head "No" when he doesn't want something (like more food, when Mama is begging him to take "just one more bite"!)

Eating:
- At five months he began eating rice cereal and while it wasn't a total hit, he happily ate it every night for dinner until he was six months old.
-At six months we began adding "solid foods". We began with banana. And he really seemed to love this new development. Slowly we introduced new foods every 3 days or so and all was well. I have been making all his baby food except for just one or two foods I choose to buy premade. I get so excited to introduce him to a new food, I love that moment when he first tastes it, contemplates it and then opens his mouth for more. Of course there have been a few duds (zucchini is not his favorite) but for the most part he has gladly eaten his way through every new introduction.
- At seven months I increased his meals from two to three daily and began creating more combinations, and adding spices and herbs, while still introducing new foods to his menu.
-So far his favorite single food is peaches, by a landslide. That boy can eat an entire peach (pureed of course) in one meal! Of course, anyone who has tasted Colorado peaches this time of year can understand this.
-His favorite "meal" is sweet potatoes mixed with pear and apple purees, millet, and a touch of nutmeg. I have a hunch he's going to love Thanksgiving time.
-Oh, and sippy cups! He loves drinking water from them. He hasn't taken a bottle willingly in many months, but he loves his sippy cups! Last night Mr. Spicy was even able to put him to bed by giving him breast milk in a sippy cup. Oh the possibilities!!!!
- And we can't forget to mention nursing! He is still breastfeeding with gusto. He loves to nurse and will often crawl over to me and cup one of my breasts with his hands as he burrows his face into it. He also frequently just blatantly tries to latch on through my shirt and bra in public. Good times! :) It is obvious that nursing is so much about comfort for him now. He wants to nurse when he is tired, when he has hurt himself, when he is in pain from gas or teething. I am so proud of us both that we have made it this far and are still going strong. I see his hunger being met more steadily by food and I know we are on the downslope. I can see in the distance a day when we do not connect this way and I can hardly imagine it. I will definitely miss this. He has been a champion nurser since mere hours after his birth. It is so hard to believe some day he just won't need this anymore.

Sleeping:
-Ouch. Well, sleeping has been......a challenge for us lately. At six months he was on a pretty steady routine. He would fall asleep quickly at about 8pm and he would wake twice for brief nursing sessions in the middle of the night, and then wake up for good around 6am. This worked ok for me. He was never awake for very long and he usually spent the last stretch of the night in bed with us.
- but then....there was teething, and gas, and god knows what. The last month or so has been a complete crapshoot. He will follow his old routine for a few nights and then randomly mix it up on us for a few nights or a week at a time. Sometimes he falls asleep really early, sometimes he stays up really late, sometimes he has a hard time falling asleep (really unusual for him), sometimes he has a hard time staying asleep (one night he continually woke up each time I would lay him down - seven times in a row, only to immediately fall back to sleep when I picked him up), sometimes he wakes up crazy early. We just never know anymore.
-So initially I fretted, I read and researched, and I berated myself for my failure to get him to sleep with regularity. And I became a miserable grumpy person and felt like I was going to explode any time he didn't sleep according to my plans and efforts. And it sucked. So one day I decided to scrap all my "efforts" and just go with the flow. I accepted that he is still a baby, that before long I won't get these night time cuddles with him, and I will miss them. I began to just understand and expect that he would wake up in the middle of the night. And although there are still those nights where I feel like crawling out of my skin for lack of sleep - for the most part, changing my own perspective on it has helped immensely. I am much more happy to help him fall back asleep when he wakes up and I can find much more tenderness for the both of us when we have had a rough night together. I do think he is about to finally cut a tooth or two and I think that is a large part of his waking, and I also think he is having such a huge spurt of development that it is also making him somewhat restless. I just keep telling myself that this is a stage, it will get better, we will get through this. He will sleep through the night eventually. (right?)

Miscellaneous:
-Zane loves to play. He actually plays now. Pulling out toys from his bin, choosing the ones he wants, exploring and manipulating them. The musical ones seem to be his favorites.
- He has a real sense of music already. He drums on things, slaps his knees to music and bounces along as he "dances". We begin a music class in a week and I am really excited to see how he will respond.
-He loves playing "peek-a-boo" with us, loves when we pretend to "get him", and loves being tickled. He laughs riotously when we dance for him or move around like dinosaurs or robots.
-He LOVES dogs! He screams in delight as they pass us on our daily walks.
- He also loves playing with water, from a hose, in the sink, in the tub - he just is fascinated by it.
-We spend our days going for walks around the park, to the coffee shop, around lakes with friends, going to the zoo, grocery shopping, playing in the grass (Zane loves the grass!) and exploring the house.



And one of my favorite moments in the last month (besides the "Mama" moment of course): He was crawling around the living room and I crawled after him pretending to "get him" by nipping his bottom and legs. He laughed so hard he almost fell over. And then, he began to turn around and crawl after me, opening his mouth and "getting me". It was an amazing moment. My baby was a little boy in that moment. The little boy I look forward to playing with for years and years to come. I caught a glimpse of our future together and it made my whole heart explode. He is my boy, my little boy.

We have so much to look forward to.

The Z Files: Month Four

Dear Zane,

Here we are. Month four. You are one third of the way through your first year. And it bears repeating that it is all still going by way too fast for your mama here.

There were more than a dozen moments this month where I caught myself laughing at myself for my big speech to you in last month's letter about how "it's ok to cry", etc. etc. Sadly, you showed us this month that you are perfectly aware of that fact and you know exactly when and under what circumstances you feel crying should commence. In fact, as I was doing some final editing of last month's letter, you began teething in earnest and I was afraid my happy, laughing little munchkin had all but disappeared.

Thankfully, that was not the case. You have had more than a few fussy nights due to teething and gas and possibly being ready for something a bit more substantial than breast milk (more on this later) - but you still dazzle us daily with your smile and you save a few tears up for those laughs that literally make your eyes water.

You have also cried a few times when confronted by a loud noise, a deep voice, or your own sad face in the mirror (you had just bonked your head on your swing). Your cries are mercifully short, but nonetheless heart wrenching. So I am glad to report that you are seemingly moving back into a more jovial season as your fourth month comes to a close.

New this month: rolling over! Here's the thing though. You mastered the art of rolling over in one day, did it multiple times in a row as we cheered you on, and then? Eh, not so much. You have not rolled over again. You seem to be over rolling and instead moving on to the fine art of the pre-crawl "scootch". Yes, you are already moving arms and legs in a determined fashion, scootching across a blanket on the floor to reach a treasured toy. Leaving your mama and papa in wide mouthed amazement, I should add.

Speaking of toys. You have discovered toys this month. To be fair though, anything within grabbing distance has become a possible "toy". Today you grabbed a pen right out of my hand as I was writing. Your favorite toy is probably your stuffed puppy rattle. You like to nurse on its nose and clasp it tightly to your chest. You also shake it and toss it and I gladly fetch it and return it to you.

You also love your doorway jumper. You stand in it, bounce in it, and walk yourself in circles in it. Today you stood in it and stared in amazement as the dogs laid just out of your reach. But you still tried reaching for them and walked yourself in their direction as far as you could, calling out to them. It was really sweet to watch. I think it might be the first time you really noticed them as other beings you could relate to.

Things no longer in your favor? Bottles, and to a lesser extent, pacifiers. Yep. We let you go too long without a bottle feeding and you have officially decided you are done with them. This has been really distressing for your daddy. He puts you to bed on Wednesday nights while I am out and you have just completely rejected his attempts to bottle-feed you. This results in one very stressed out papa and you going to bed hungry. I even went out and bought you a fancy bottle made to resemble a breast. Nope. There is no fooling you. So, I decided skip the bottle altogether. I dug out a sippy-cup we received as a gift when you were born, filled it with breast milk, and voila! You aren't exactly gulping it down, but you are willing to take several sips from it which seems to satiate your hunger just enough to allow you and Daddy to have a peaceful and enjoyable night together and I am not worrying about you going to bed hungry. You are also just about done with pacifiers as well, which is not as big of an issue but makes me a little sad for some reason. You just seem to be growing up so fast little man!

You are waking up a lot at night lately and it seems to be just hunger that is waking you. You generally wake, eat, and drift back to sleep. Although there have been a couple rare nights when your face lit up in the middle of the night and you decided it was party-time! For the most part, you are just eating a lot, all day, all night. Which, paired with the teething, the rejection of the bottle and acceptance of the sippy cup, the grabbing, the fascination you have with anything we are eating these days, and the fact that you are one big kiddo (18 pounds last time I checked) leads me to thinking it may be time to start you on something more substantial - like FOOD. Yikes! I swore I would wait till 6 months to start you on solids, because I have a pretty significant food sensitivity. But, once again - being your mama means letting go of my own preconceived ideas about how things "should" go. My instincts are telling me to feed you. I think I have to listen to that.

So, next month's letter will probably be all about eating and food, and what you like to eat and what you hate to eat, and what babyfood looks like splattered all over our dining room walls. I sort of can't wait!

Last but not least, we took you on your first official road trip this month!!! Your daddy's birthday and Mother's Day fell on the same weekend, so we packed up and headed down to one of our favorite places on earth: Taos, NM. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast and you so charmed the owners that they offered us free babysitting if we would just bring you back. It was a bit of a long trip, too long I think - but you handled it like a champ and I think you even slept better there than you do at home! Of course you got to sleep in your favorite spot, between Mama and Papa, all night long, so that may have had something to do with it. I loved introducing you to this special place for us and I can't wait to bring you back when you get a little older. I also really loved getting that time away, just the three of us, a family. There were no chores to be argued over, no "to do lists" to make, just us enjoying being together, resting, reconnecting, finding our own ways. It was magical and it made me want to run away somewhere with you and your daddy. I am already looking forward to our next family trip.

What else can I say? You continue to be an incredible source of joy and wonder in our lives. I am a better person because you are here, I love being your mother and cannot think of anywhere I would rather be than where I am at right now. I love you with more of my heart than I ever knew existed and I just fall more in love each day. Thank you again for making me a mother, your mother. Thank you for being our son. Our sun.

With love as deep as the ocean,
Mama

My 5 years in veterinary medicine finally pay off.....

So when I was out in the Midwest visiting family I got to spend some great time with my goddaughter, LJ. She and I have a really special relationship. We are really close and I take my role as her aunt and godmother very seriously. Who knew it would someday require me to discuss with her the anatomy of female mammals, lactating ones to be specific?

When LJ first found out last summer we were trying to become parents she was a bit skeptical. She voiced her concerns that our time together would not be "just us" anymore and that she wouldn't get so much of our love and attention. Mr. Spicy and I assured her that she would always be very special to us, we would always have space and time for her, that we would make sure to get our one-on-one time with her even once we became parents. We even told her part of the reason we were so eager to become parents was because we loved our time with her so much and we hoped to have a child just like her one day. She took this all in, but she still had her reservations.

So this year, when we finally became pregnant and told her about it, we expected a lot of resistance. But she's eight years old now and MUCH more mature, don't you know? So, she checked in with us, reminded us that we promised to still make time for her and then she took it all in stride. Within a week or two she was negotiating babysitting fees for the summers when she comes to visit. She's offering us a week of babysitting of $10 - I think we'd better get that in writing!

Well, when we came to visit we found she was really taking this whole thing very seriously. She had gone to the library and found a book for kids that talked about pregnancy and babies. She was doing her research. I was so proud!

She took me upstairs to show me this book. It was a book about the human body and the human life cycle, illustrated and written for her age level. It was actually pretty cool.

She flipped immediately to the section on pregnancy. (I notice she skipped right over the "How babies are made" section - Thank God!) She showed me illustration after illustration of a baby growing in the belly of an increasingly pregnant mommy. She pointed and reminded me that this was what our baby looked like right now. She got through the part where the baby comes out and is born, and then....

LJ: But ewwww....this part is REALLY gross!

(I look down expecting to see the baby pooping or vomiting or something....but instead see a mother tenderly breastfeeding her newborn)

Me: That's how she feeds the baby, it's very natural.

LJ: No. It isn't. It's gross. Really really gross. And weird.

Me: But that's how mommy cows feed their babies, and horses, and dogs, and cats..... (she lives on a farm so I was trying to draw on something she might be familiar with)

LJ: Um. no. No they don't - they don't feed them with their boobies.

Me: Yes they do. Their "boobies" are just in a different place.


From the look on her face at that point, I am afraid I may have just scarred her for life.