Oops

Some of the most memorable moments in life I gain from my son. There is joy in understanding, awe in accomplishment and magic in learning. One of my son's books is a whimsical exploration of learning how to dress oneself by Sandra Boynton called Blue Hat, Green Hat. For those of you without children, in the story the animals are learning what the items of clothing are called and where they go. The poor turkey however, can never seem to get the item in the right place. With the examples of the other animals putting the clothes on correctly, it makes my son giggle to see the turkey make mistakes. In fact, while pointing at the pictures he'll "read" the story to me. It is joyous fun for all involved. We had put the book on the bookshelf for a bit of time to read other favorites and hadn't seen the book in a while when we were getting him dressed the other morning. The shirt and pants went on correctly, but when we came to the socks, we started playing. Did the sock go on his head? No. Did it go on his lovey? No. Did it go on his knee? Nope. Did it go on his hand? He giggled. He grabbed the other sock and pulled it on the other hand. He looked up at me with the mischievous grin on his face and said quite clearly, "Oops!"

It is a wonder when kids do things on their own. I could see the complete knowledge of what he was doing and the absolute joy of understanding something in his upturned face. Moments like these are completely precious and fleeting. As a parent, I know they slip by sometimes so fast that you can hardly breathe. They are the moments you cherish. Some parents put them in memory books. Some parents tell family and friends. Some parents keep the memory in their heart and just treasure it for their own. This moment struck me. I had to take a few moments and write it down. Maybe someone else has moments like these with their children. This is what life is all about. And frankly, it should be.

4 Months and counting

Yesterday my son was 4 calendar months old. Time really does fly when you have a little one. And one day you look and the little one isn't all that little any more. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. The alternative is much worse. However, my little guy is growing. So it's time to reflect on just how precious every moment is. And secondly, it's time to make an appointment with a photographer who can immortalize these days forever with a much better artistry than I can.

I am off to contemplate how lucky I am for these last 4 months.

Fieldtrips

My hubby and I have a pretty unique situation when it comes to the daily care of our son: both of us work out of the house. I've said to many a friend and colleague that I wouldn't have borne a child if I couldn't spend time raising said child. That is still true. However on days like today, I cannot help but feel like I've missed something.

Today was one of the days that Hubby had primary care duties. He still had a client he had to visit. But this client was friendly to bringing the little Frog Prince along for the appointment. Apparently the Frog Prince was the hit of the day. This in itself is not surprising. (No, I'm not at all biased.)

What is surprising is that I now feel like I've missed something important. Not that anything unique happened today while the two of them were out on their adventure. I strongly feel that a first visit to the hardware store is truly a male-bonding experience. I guess I just cannot adequately express how much I missed them both today.

At least tomorrow's fieldtrip includes me. That is something to look forward to.

Rabid Parents

There are many opinions in the world. And there are many parents who are rational and sane most of the time. Until . . . someone criticizes their children or parenting styles. Then the gloves come off.

Every parent needs to do what they think is right for their child. Every child is different and may have different needs. I do not presume to know anyone else's situation with their child. I only know my own. I read . . . a lot. There are many parenting sites, articles and blogs for anyone to peruse at any given time.

Where the conflict comes in is when someone states something emphatically: do this for your child, don't do that for your child, to spank or not to spank, home school or not, medicate or not, discipline or not. Get a grip folks. What's right for your family and child may not be right for someone else's family or child. I see this daily where a comment on a blog or even just a comment on a blog will spark a rabid attack. No holds barred. Then people start taking sides and it's an all out war.

Few things can really push our buttons like opinions on raising children. I just hope I remember that as I continue my journey through raising our son. And you know what . . . I'm not telling you how to raise your kid either.

Belly up to the Milk Bar

Warning: this is a mommy topic post. If you are squeamish about or not interested in the topic of breastfeeding, skip this entry.

Ever since I brought my son home from the hospital, breastfeeding has been a bit different for us. According to the Occupational Therapist who specializes in breastfeeding he has a "tight suck." Basically he crushes the nipple when he latches on and doesn't let go, much like a bulldog. After 2 days of trying to feed him in the hospital, I had sores from trying to feed him. There is a lactation clinic here in my town. I went in. They gave me a nipple shield. It's a cone shaped piece of silicone that goes between the nipple and the baby essentially protecting the tender skin and giving the right shape to the baby to promote sucking properly. It took a couple weeks for my disappointment to wane. I wanted to feed him normally and I was a failure (not really, but hormones will do funny things to the thought process.) Every now and then I would try and feed him without the nipple shield. It was a very painful and demoralizing process. Eventually I just came to the realization that in order for me to breastfeed, there would be this little piece of silicone between us and I would do whatever it took to provide all the nutrients I could. I went to the store and bought a couple extra shields so we would have plenty whenever my little Frog Prince wanted to nurse. In other words, I got over it.

Recently I went back to work. Now I have a real low-stress kind of job in the software industry—if you believe the low stress part, I have some prime coastal property in Arizona to sell you. Returning to this environment has impacted my production but not my desire to breastfeed my child. My production declined rapidly. Once I got back from my first business trip, which Dad and Son bonded quite nicely, my little FP refused the nipple shield. After 3 months of always using this little piece of silicone, now he wanted nothing to do with it? And here's me thinking that all that has happened between now and his birth is that he's bigger and stronger than he was before. After a bit of panic where I wasn't really sure I wanted him anywhere near my unprotected nipple, I gave in and offered it to him. Why? (I mean beside the fact that he was hungry.) I was sick and he desperately needed the antibodies in my milk to keep him from getting sick. Yep, I got the hubby sick too. FP really needed those antibodies. Barracuda boy latched on and believe it or not, I survived. The interesting thing since then: he refuses, absolutely positively refuses, the nipple shield. I've tried. He likes it au natural and won't have it any other way. He also went through the 3 month growth spurt and was feeding all the time. Luckily FP isn't as destructive to the nipple tissue as he was at first. Either that or . . . never mind!

So I guess the next round is on me (pun intended) as he bellies up to the milk bar.

Happiness

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . . . My hubby got a fortune cookie yesterday that said, "Some people pursue happiness, you create it." I like the sentiment of that. Life . . . this existence we have that some know how to take advantage of, some don't. Liberty . . . freedom, the ability to self-determine what you're going to do and how. Happiness . . . now that is harder. Happiness for everyone it is different.

What is happiness? For some it is material: money, things, more money, chocolate . . . you get the drift. For some it is not material: family, love, faith or feelings of general well being. For others it is simply unattainable. Of course if you don't know what makes you happy it's kind of hard to make sure you get it, isn't it? Back to the fortune cookie. What if you stop pursuing happiness and just create it or decide to BE happy? I know. A sickeningly simple thought that can be very hard to do.

I don't have any answers. But I've come to the conclusion that I am going to find out what makes me happy, short term, long term, whatever and go after it. Because the pursuit can be fun. But you know what? I've got the best hubby in the world. He's my best friend, my partner, my lover and my other half. He and I have a beautiful son who is a treasure and a happy boy as long as he has his favorite burp rags to play with (he's 3.5 months old.) Now that is what makes me happy. If I could figure out my career . . . that's a topic for another day.

Fear

I can honestly say that until I had a child I didn't know what the true meaning of fear was. Oh sure, I've been afraid before. Who hasn't? But I'm talking about bone chilling, soul curdling, deep down bone cracking fear. The kind that makes you stand up and take notice of what you're going through. Time really does slow to a crawl. The world caved in on me. My breath caught in my lungs and I felt that I couldn't breathe. My vision narrowed to a small mote of dust dancing in the air.

What scared me? It wasn't one thing, it was two. And I can tell you that they happened within four days of each other. Yep, that's right, the two scariest moments of my life in the same week. The first came right after I gave birth to our son. The placenta didn't detach as expected. Here I was just having had the greatest moment of my life, giving birth to my soul mate's and my son, and an hour later I still had not delivered the placenta. There were concerns that the placenta had grown through the uterine wall. There is a medical term for it but I didn't hear that. All I could think of was the fact that if I started bleeding I could die. And it wasn't death I feared . . . it was not ever seeing my son grow, boy, teen, man. I still cannot think about it without just breaking down into tears. At least I'm not shaking uncontrollably like I did before. So an hour after I gave birth I'm being wheeled into an operating room not knowing if I'm ever going to see my best friend, partner, soul mate and husband again . . . not to mention my newborn son . . . it was terrifying. They didn't give me any additional anesthesia since I'd had an epidural. I went out on my own. Yep, I shutdown completely. My reaction to gut wrenching fear? Hide . . . don't face it. So I was out when they went in to figure out what was wrong. I'm sure that the 23.5 hours of labor had little to do with it. Needless to say, I didn't die. I didn't need a hysterectomy. The placenta had one spot that did not come loose. A small amount of teasing and everything was fine . . . but they didn't know that until they got in there to check. It hit all that much harder because we'd fought the gestational diabetes to get to this point to have a healthy baby boy. I know they have to tell you the risks up front so you can make an informed decision. My reality came down to "save my life" so I could be with my husband and son.

The second scare came 4 days later. My son and I had been released from the hospital right on schedule. We took him to the Pediatrician for his 4 day check up. Nothing new or unusual there. The doctor thought he looked a little orange (the first time I've ever heard "a little" being equated to the color of a pumpkin) and asked to do another bilirubin test. Yep, you guessed it, he had jaundice. At the time, I had no idea that this was a common occurrence in newborns. I know that now . . . hindsight is 20/20. But when they tell you that you have to take your 4 day old son back into the hospital NICU all the really bad things go through your mind. After all you've had this small, fragile little person for all of 4 days. You have responded to his every little cry. Held him. Cuddled him. Cared for him in the dark of the night. And now you have to take him to the NICU because something is wrong. This is something that if you've never been around many newborns that you would not know. It took my husband, who is the oldest in a rather large family, to explain it to me. This of course happened after we got the little one to the hospital and into the baby tanning bed. Everyone else just assumed I was losing it I guess. And trust me, I wasn't losing it . . . I'd lost it. Gone. Bye-bye. He wasn't in the hospital for long. Just barely 24 hours. They left him in the tanning bed all night and into the morning. I don't know that the tanning bed did all that much good, really. My milk came in and he started actually getting more to eat. The nurses were saying that getting more milk through his digestive system would also help clear him up as well. So we fed him, and fed him, and pumped and fed him some more. We took him home the next day. Thankfully he's been the right color, gaining weight and growing as expected ever since.

Even though I can now write this without shaking, I can't really articulate how afraid I really was. It's taken me almost 2 months just to get to this point where I can write about it. They say that time heals. In this case it has to a point, but I will never forget how deeply afraid I was. I'm sure that there will be other times where the fear reaches up and grabs me by the throat. That's called being a parent, isn't it? I can only hope that those moments are few and very . . . very . . . very far apart.

On Birth

Four weeks ago yesterday my son was born. There are all the pervasive messages of "miracle" and "gift" in the popular culture. There is one thing that they really don't tell you however. Giving birth is traumatic . . . for both baby and mom. The sheer number of possible complications is staggering if you've ever bothered to look into it. So many different things have to come together and work just right for a "natural" child birth. No wonder so many women and children died in childbirth before the concerted efforts of modern medicine. This opens up the possibilities for discussions on are we weakening the gene pool by intervening medically so regularly, but that is a topic for another time. Let's just say that we had some complications that have since worked themselves out that gave us quite a scare at the time.

Baby has a huge role in getting into the real world. The hours of labor are very stressful to the little one. In the process, there are numerous turns and twists that the baby makes just navigating the birth canal. They don't tell you that until you take the childbirth class. I have a bachelor's degree in Biology and I had very little real knowledge about how the whole process works in humans. It's a wonder that we've managed to subsist as a species given all the various dynamics of giving birth, feeding, and caring for a helpless newborn much less thrive and take over the entire planet. This stuff is not intuitive. For someone who's spent her entire life having things be relatively easy for her to work out, get or catch on, this process has been less than straight forward. I believe only a small part of that can be attributed to the surge of hormones that everyone talks about. Logic has very little part to play.

All I wanted before he was born was to have a healthy baby. Now that he's been in the world for 4+ weeks, all I want is a healthy baby and all that entails. It means that he gets the right vaccinations minus any harmful chemicals like Mercury as a preservative, no BPA in any plastic that he encounters in his digestive adventures, no lead in his brightly colored toys, the right safety equipment just to navigate the world . . . the list goes on and on. There are many worries or fears that have taken the forefront of my attention these days that make what I used to worry about seem so . . . trivial. I hold the little one in my arms and I know that I'm looking at the best thing I've ever done or will do. Now it's a challenge to not screw up his life too badly with all my imperfections.

Responsibilities

There are all kinds of responsibilities in this world. Some are definitely more important than others. It just depends on your point of view. In my opinion parenting is a huge responsibility that often is lacking in a measure of good sense. You notice that I don't say common sense. We all know that common sense is base sense and not all that common to begin with. Browsing the news today, I came across 2 stories that pretty much typify what I'm thinking.

A 3 year-old took his toy Mustang (battery powered) onto the freeway (link pops a new window) in Wisconsin with a 2 year-old passenger. No one was hurt, thank god. But when his dad asked him, he said they just "went for a ride." A couple things pop into my mind: why is a 3 year-old playing in a moving vehicle anywhere near the street (driveway or sidewalk) without at least minimal supervision? Especially knowing that you're that close to major intersections or interchanges for freeways? And why would a parent of a 2 year-old allow play dates where such supervision is so sketchy? I'm mean come on folks. These kids at this age have no idea what it means to be mortal nor do they have any concept of danger or fear. They are simply mimicking mom and/or dad in behavior. Let's get in the car and go for a ride . . . on the freeway! Not good. Kudos to the 3 year-old driver, apparently he obeyed all the traffic laws and was operating his "vehicle" in the crosswalk and correctly according to the traffic signals. Apparently the keys and battery of this little vehicle have been removed. Kind of like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped. The part that really bothered me the most is that the dad's comment after the fact, "Nothing bad happened, so it's kind of cute now when you look at it" . . . uh right!

The second story involved the arrest of a Mom who is accused of buying her 14 year-old son guns (link also pops new window.) Teenagers are notorious for not thinking things through but simply reacting. So what on earth would make a parent think buying a firearm for any reason is a good idea? The kid is being bullied. Ok fine, what kid gets through that part of their life who hasn't been bullied? I bet I can probably even get bullies to cop to the fact that someone at sometime picked on them growing up. They had to learn the behavior somewhere. So you're a parent and your teenager son who's obsessed with the shootings that happened at Columbine High School asks you to buy a gun . . . let's think about this one for a second . . . NO FREAKING WAY!!! Not only did Mom actually buy one for him, Dad tried to as well but was prevented because he's got a previous felony. And not only does he have 1, he has 3. It happened more than once!

Does this bother anyone else? I mean, 15 minutes of browsing the news and this is what parents are doing for their kids?? My kids will likely hate me for, *gasp*, being responsible and thinking things through before acting. The best thing I can give them growing up is the ability to think and understand that actions have consequences. Apparently I might be alone in my philosophy, but come on. This is just a little too out of control.