Rice Cereal: A story in pictures

We planned to start Zane on rice cereal on Father's Day, which was also his 5 month birthday. But I ended up in the ER that day, so we pushed it back a day. He has now been eating rice cereal mixed with breast milk, every night for two weeks and he loves it! But it didn't start out that way:

Hmmm....this is odd, wonder why they have me sitting up here.


What are you mixing up there, Mama? Can I have some?


Wait a minute! I was just kidding!


Seriously NOT impressed.


Why are you doing THIS again?





Maybe it tastes better straight from the bowl?



Or from a cup! What a great idea!



Gulp...Gulp....Gulp


Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh........


Ok. Maybe I was quick to judge. I will try the spoon again. Bring it on.


So far so good.


I can't believe I almost missed out on this! Hurry up Mama!


kthx! I will take it from here! Bye Bye!


And the rest is history......

The Z Files: Month Five

Dear Zane,

I am a week two weeks late getting this written. And although I want to believe otherwise, I am fairly certain that by the time you are old enough to read these letters and appreciate them, you will not be asking why it took your mother a full week two full weeks to finally get your letter written, but rather how she managed to get it done only one two weeks late. I am working on this kiddo, but something tells me it's a lifelong lesson for me.

But you! There is so much to write about you!

You are still generally the happiest baby I have ever known. From the moment you awake each morning, you are full of smiles. And although most mornings start much earlier than I would prefer (you are still working on the whole sleeping-through-the-night gig), the way you absolutely beam at your father and I when you open your eyes makes every morning our own private little party with you. But you don't save the smiles just for us. Oh no. You are generous with these treasures. Everywhere we go, you smile at just about everyone you meet, the only exception being the rare moments you are overtired. You actually seem to work at charming people. You try to catch their eyes, and then boom you floor them with your smile. And everywhere we go, people are just drawn to you. I find myself surrounded by cooing women at grocery stores on a regular basis. It's the "Zane show" all day, every day. And I could not be more proud. You seriously might have a future in politics if you keep this up, kid. You even won the heart of a two-year old girl at a restaurant recently. She was so captivated by you that she spontaneously leaned forward and kissed you! I am beginning to fear your teen years if this is any predictor of what's to come.

You are really affectionate. You regularly grab our faces and move in to dive-bomb us with a big slobbery baby kiss. You hold on to us, almost hugging us, as we hold you. You pat my back gently just as I pat yours to comfort you. You grab the fat on the backs of our arms with a little vice-like baby grip and pull yourself closer to us. And the absolute kicker? When you lie in bed between us, you reach each arm out to touch each of us. You want to be in contact with us as much as possible and you are never happier than when both your dad and I are cuddled up next to you together. This is something I hold so dear about you and I really hope is always a part of you. I hope you never lose your ability to be openly affectionate and loving with your family and those you love. You have caused our hearts to break open with your tenderness and we are so much better for it.


You are also incredibly physical and active. Of course, you still love your jumper and are launching yourself in the air as if you believe you might be able to fly if you just push a little harder off of the floor next time. And, you are not fully crawling yet, but that doesn't mean you aren't mobile! You have perfected your ability to roll in either direction with speed and purpose, and you have developed your own scooching, inch-worm/army crawl. You also are quick to propel yourself off of any surface by pushing off on your legs with all your might. It is truly amazing we have not had to make another ER visit yet. Also, at the end of this month, you spontaneously began sitting up and being able to balance on your own like this for a few minutes at a time. It's been really exciting to watch you tackle this milestone. You seem so proud of yourself and you concentrate so hard on keeping your balance. You seem to love the challenge of it.

You are a determined little one. Whether you are in the jumper, or on the floor, or being held - you have a knack for finding a way to get to whatever you want. You are the definition of perseverance. You just do not give up when you see a toy, a book, or random objects you'd like to get your little fists around. I love watching the concentration in your eyes as you try to figure out how you will get to what you want and I love watching how happy you are with yourself when you achieve your goal.

You lead the way more and more each day. I want to read, research, learn how to do this the "right way", without mistakes. But your presence, your exuberance for life, your eagerness demands that I turn away from the books and the internet and simply face you (and sometimes, just in time to grab your leg before you launch yourself off the couch face-first). And so I do. I face you, I look into your eyes, and together we figure out what comes next.

One of my favorite memories from this month is a walk we took together in the rain. It has rained nearly every day in the last few weeks. One afternoon, we were home together as the clouds rolled in. I watched the sky turn grey and the drops begin to fall. I wondered how we would fill our afternoon. You had already had some "jumper-time" and time on the floor with your toys. We had read books. We had sang. We had danced. What would we do now? I looked at you and the answer came to me. I carried you outside and we felt the wind blow on our cheeks and felt the first droplets fall on our heads and arms. No one else was out. It felt like our own private world. I grabbed the umbrella, put you in the Ergo, and we went for a slow walk in the rain around our neighborhood. The streets were quiet. The flowers in bloom. The leaves wet and dripping. We looked up at the trees, we knelt down to look at flowers. We inhaled the smell of the rain. The world was ours and I was filled with gratitude for it and for you.

I am continually shocked at how much you teach me about being alive, being in the moment, and being a mother. And when I can't find the answer simply by watching you and listening to my heart, you make me want to get the answer - whatever it takes - the answer that will help me be the best Mama I can. Because you deserve that and a great deal more.

I love seeing the world through your eyes. You are delightful little man. Completely delightful. I am so glad you are my son, and I am your Mama. I love you so much.


Love,
Mama

"To beat as my own heart"

I recently read this post and this one, (by an amazing blogger known as Her Bad Mother) and I wept with the familiarity. Though she is much further down this road than I am, and has already said so many more good-byes, she is foreshadowing the storm I can already feel brewing in my heart. And it scares me.

The storm within me that is my knowing that my heart must let go, must let my little boy grow up a little more every day, a bit more every week, and a lot more every month. That he will. That he has already, so much. That I have already said good-bye to more pieces of him than I can fathom in these five short months. And it doesn't look like it is going to get any easier any time soon.

The baby who sucks on his lips and laughs so easily, the boy who pats me on the back when I hold him close, the infant who clutches at my arms and pinches me like a crab to pull me closer. The bouncing, jumping, already exploring, chubby legged little cherub. I want to hold him here forever. I want to....

"just hold on and breathe him in and pretend that we are still two pieces of one body, that I could, if I wanted to, press him back into my chest to beat as my own heart."

She says it so much more eloquently than I can. As I read her words, I find my own heart speaking to me through them.

How do we do this as mothers? How do we hold on, breathe them in, remember, and then let go? I know we must. But how? How do we survive it?

Do I even deserve to call myself a blogger anymore?

Geez it is hard to blog these days!

Between Zane hitting the age where he is somewhat mobile, excited to explore his environment, and in need of almost constant interaction and my recent health issues (I will get to that in just a sec) - it's been....crazy.

Being a full-time mom is by far the hardest, most consuming, most challenging role I have ever had. Just when I think I am finding my rhythm, something shifts and I feel totally out of my league again. Please tell me I am not the only one who had a hard time finding her Momma groove?

It's the managing of my/our time, the neverending to-do lists, the necessary organization, the "doing" of motherhood that I keep struggling with. The loving of my son (and oh how I love him!) , the snuggling, the taking walks in the rain? Those, I revel in. Those are easy. Those are the moments I get out of bed for every day.

And he is totally worth every second of it. Of course.

Health issues. Well.

So, I have had several "episodes" in the last few months. I thought they were back spasms. I would feel pain radiating up my sternum and around to my back and then my entire back would sieze up and I would be completely imobilized with pain for 5-10 minutes. I have been seeing my chiropractor and massage therapist to get some relief.

Ha. Well. This weekend I had another "episode". Only this time it did not get better. It didn't go away, it just kept getting more and more painful. I tried standing in a hot shower, I tried icing my back. I moaned and breathed through the pain as if I was in labor. It was honestly right up there with back labor if not worse. Finally, after an hour of this - when I could no longer feel my extremities and I could barely walk - we headed to the ER.

Long, painful, story later.....I have gallstones. I was having a major gall bladder attack. It took 4 IV injections of Dilaudid to manage the pain. There was talk of needing to remove my gall bladder immediately if they could not get the pain under control. Thank goodness that didn't have to happen.

I was discharged on a super-strict no/low fat diet and told to follow up with my primary and a surgeon. I have those appointments scheduled next week so we will see how they go. The diet sucks but if it keeps me from having another attack, I will do it as long as I need to. Of course, adding these new guidelines to my already gluten-free diet means I am ridiculously restrictive in my eating.

I am anxious about surgery for several reasons: a) surgery! b) removal of an organ!, and c) Zane is not taking bottles at this point, so ensuring he is fed while I am out of commission for the surgery and getting the drugs out of my system, is problematic. He will take a couple of ounces from a sippy cup (or a small regular cup for that matter), and he eats his rice cereal mixed with breast milk like it is going out of style, but I worry he won't eat enough. Also? My breasts HATE the breast pump and I can usually only pump 2 oz or so in a sitting, and! my milk goes sour in the freezer for some reason. Literally every bag of frozen milk I have warmed up is bad, really bad. So....in order to have surgery I have to somehow have several bags of freshly pumped milk ready and I have to have convinced Zane that the bottle and sippy cup are not his enemies. That doesn't feel daunting at all.

So. We'll see what the doctors say and go from there, I guess.

Also? This all happened on Mr. Spicy's very first Father's Day. Poor guy, it really sucked for him. I promised him a Father's Day do-over.

And then, on top of all this, I went and had a major fall yesterday in Boulder. I was walking with Zane in the Ergo on my chest, carrying take-out food for myself and a friend. And - bam! In my efforts not to fall on Zane (I was successful, thank goodness) - I ended up landing on my knee and elbow. I ripped my pants wide open and received nasty scrapes and bruises on my knee and elbow. Today I am still pretty sore and feel like I was hit by a truck. Ugh.

SO. That's what's going on in my world.

And in the time it took me to write this post, my little houdini unswaddled himself three times and woke himself up with his wild arms. He loves being swaddled to sleep, but then he pulls his arms out and he can't sleep like that. Anyone else have this issue? Any suggestions???

Ok, I'd better get off to bed myself. More posts to come soon. I am running behind on Zane's monthly letter (he turned 5 months on Father's Day) and I haven't written about his adventures in eating cereal (I have lots of pictures too!), so I have some writing to do.

The Beauty of the Rain

It is mid-afternoon, but the light streaming through the window blinds is dim and grey. It is raining and the familiar smell of rain fills the room as the sound of the heavy drops hitting the roof and the street outside comes through the open window like a thousand tiny drums.

I am curled up on my side, Zane is nestled against my chest, his head just below mine. We are breathing in tandem as he sleeps, his angel face pressed against me, and I read.

I stop and breathe in the smell of him, I feel the weight of his head on my arm, the warmth of his skin against mine. I stop and take notice of the light, the smell of the rain, the staccato drum beats. I stop and say, "Thank you" to Whomever is listening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Baby Kisses

Maybe it's because I am always kissing him like crazy (who could blame me?), but lately I swear Zane is kissing me back!

He grabs hold of my hair, my cheeks, my neck, my ears - whatever will give him the best handhold - and he pulls my face towards his (or vice versa), and with his open slobbery mouth plants a big wet kiss on me. It is the sweetest thing ever and I never ever want to forget his little face as he stands on my lap and looks down at me with his bright little baby eyes looking into mine, ready to make his move.

I don't know how much more my heart can take.

How do you do it???

Never have I had more I wanted to write about, more I've wanted to document, more I have wanted to express.

And yet? I simply cannot find the time most days. If I am not busy with the munchkin, I am busy with something else - like oh....showering, laundry, sleeping, cleaning, trying to return a phone call or an email - or spending quality time with the husband.

So - you blogging mamas out there, I am curious - how do you do it? How do you manage to find time to get a few words down in between everything else?

I feel like such a slacker!

Our six month four month check-up

I have so much I should write about:
- my first Mother's Day
- our first "date" without Zane
- our first roadtrip with the little guy
- the crazy violent nightmares I am having

the list goes on....

But I will stop and take a breath and document our four month well-baby visit that happened yesterday:

Zane is squarely in the 90th percentile across the board, coming in at 17.1 pounds and 26 inches.

The doctor said "He is the size of a six month old and has the development of a six month old and he's smiling at me like a six month old! He was born two months late!"

I laughed at that, but it feels pretty on the mark, Zane has always "felt" like an older baby to me. Maybe he's "an old soul", who knows. I just think he's amazing.

We got permission to start rice cereal if we want to, in the doctors words, "It won't hurt him, but he'd be fine without it too." He basically said if I want a break from constant nursing go ahead and introduce it. So - we're thinking about it. I have a box of organic brown rice cereal and baby spoons. I have been feeling for a while he might be ready for something a little more "hearty", but I am going to wait till I feel really good about going forward with it. Mama instincts and all.

We also gave him his first vaccine yesterday. We delayed the start of vaccinations and are following an extremely modified vaccination schedule. And to avoid beginning a huge debate I will just leave it at that for now. If you want to know my reasoning behind our choices I would be happy to share, but suffice to say that I did my research, I talked with our Dr., and then I listened internally for what felt right to me - which was agonizing and is still something I am learning to do. As our Dr. so eloquently stated yesterday, (and I paraphrase) "There is no choice that carries zero risks, what is important is how you feel about the choice you are making and that you are honest with yourself about the risks you are taking and feeling ok taking those risks."

I am finding that so much of parenting lies in this grey area where I must make a choice, without any assurance of making "the one right choice", and then I must embrace that choice and stand in it - honest about who I am as a mother and what I am doing. Talk about a crash course in confidence!

Anyway, Zane did great with his one shot - he cried briefly which broke my heart to pieces, and he seemed a little sore in that leg last night but otherwise completely fine. I, on the otherhand, still feel traumatized a bit by it. I am such a wimp when it comes to him.

On that note....I had better get going, my six month four month old is asking me to play. And who could resist this face?

Time Management

I have to admit, I am not great at time management, especially not when it involves routines and schedules. I get bored. I am a life-long procrastinator and tend to manage my life in sprints and lulls rather than predictable, measured, walks and jogs.

But, it seems this too must change.

There is no procrastination with babies. There is only now. NOW. This moment. There is no promise of another moment, in the future, later...to do this thing, to go that place. Nope. Because that moment, that moment is completely unpredictable. Who knows whether that moment is the one that will hold the toxic diaper blow-out, the projectile spit-up, the unanticipated nap, the unanticipated lack of a nap, the baby who needs to be held, or all of the above.

So, I am trying. I am learning to carpe diem and all that. I am also learning to bring more order to my days and weeks through, (gulp), schedules and routines. And honestly, I like it. I am just not great at it.

All it takes is a week of being awakened every two hours and boom! I find myself disheveled, sitting in my three-days-unshowered filth and feeling like I live in a cave - promising myself I will take a shower....tomorrow. In fact, that is how I spent most of last week. Each day wondering if I was the only one to have sunk to this level so repeatedly, wondering what had happened to the energetic mama I seemed to have been a month before.

But this week I promised myself things would be different. I seized the opportunity to shower in the morning before Mr. Spicy left for work, instead of lying in bed counting how few hours of sleep I managed the night before and hoping Zane would fall back to sleep in a few minutes so I could steal another hour or two. Sure, maybe I still crawled back into bed on occasion, napping a precious hour or two with my deliciously snuggly little babe, but at least I had showered that day! And I began mapping the week. Monday: yoga day, Tuesday: errands, Wednesday: walk to the coffee shop and hang out there, and that's as far as I have gotten. I will make Thu or Fri a zoo day (we just became members and I am SO excited), and we'll probably make the other day some sort of activity as well (maybe a music class, or a playdate, or gardening!). I am trying to find a planned reason to leave the house every single day for just a couple of hours. This way I don't slip too far into cave-land, Zane gets out and gets some stimulation, and we still have plenty of time to hang out at home for a long nap, house cleaning, and just general necessary down-time.

Sounds like I have it figured out, huh? If only it were that easy! The hard part for me is going the distance, sticking to the plan week after week. And yet, with no plan - mayhem ensues. So, I am trying this out. I'll try to remember to let you know how it turns out.

What about you moms out there? What had to change for you in terms of time management? Did you have to become more organized? Let go of rigid routines? Did you find a routine or schedule that really worked for you and your child?

And you mommies-to-be....what do you anticipate needing to change for you?

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