Motherhood

Slowly Getting Better
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

I just read an amazing post on Static Vox by StatMom on Motherhood.

Please check it out, it in many ways articulates a lot of what I think and have gone through. But mostly it inspired me to write this post.

I too am a person who needs to control everything, and well In my mind and with my logic I though sure, kids have free will but I can be in control of them, I am of course the Mommy, but it didn’t take me very long to learn, and well I don’t know if I actually learned this or it just happened, but Holly is the one in charge, and well, it is a conscience choice for me.

I have several thoughts going on about this, so I will do my best to organize them, but the most obvious is her Fragile X Diagnosis. This immediately threw out the window any preconceived notions or expectations I planned on having for my child. That is not to say that I still don’t have many hope and dreams and goals for her, career, college, family, but it is a very real reality that some or none of those will happen, and what I really want is for her to be a Happy and Independent Individual.

This next comment may be a little revealing, but when imagining kids in a philosophical way Joel and I joked about how we would not have “control” over them, and all kids rebel. Whatever we wanted for our child, instead they might grow up to be.. Republican, or join the Military, or a Priest (you get the idea) and so while I was not a mom who would freak if my 16 year old wanted to pierce her eyebrow or get a tattoo, there were things she could do or want to be that would certainly rebel against my beliefs. Now of course I would love that child none the less. But now that I have *THIS* child I understand this philosophical conversation in such a deeper way, and well some days I think, if she has the cognitive ability to understand why she wants to be a republican, and can have debates and conversations with me about that, I will feel lucky that she has grown so well.

So moving beyond her diagnosis, I just recently participated in a study at UC Berkeley about parenting. As part of the study we did a 1 hour interview and were asked about our parenting style. One of the questions was whether I adapt the schedule to the babies needs or if she adapts to the families needs, and I suddenly heard myself saying, well of course our life revolves around what Holly wants to do. I then explained why I think this is important, and how I not only want her to feel that she is important and listened to and that her wants have value, but I also realized that I didn’t really have anything I wanted to do other then spend time with her. Now of course some days we have a Doctor’s appointment or Therapy and she just has to deal with it, and I have to keep her up from a nap, or take her out when that might not be what she wants to do, but on other days I basically follow her around. Each week I have a very full calendar of events we could go to. Swimming, Mother’s Group, The Zoo, Play dates, The park, Museum, and if at any given moment we are up to going out, we find an event and go, even if it is just Studio Grow or tumble and tea. But already at 10 months old, I can tell when she wants to chill and watch Baby Einstein, or when she wants to explore, or when the house is just too small for her enormous curiosity and she needs to go out and be social. While I may talk about putting her on a schedule, when she is hungry I feed her and when she is tired she takes a nap, and with not a lot of effort ton my part she has a natural schedule that emerges.

So it seems, without realizing it has happened, my life has begun to revolve around my child. Sometimes I try and carve out me time, we go to Baby Brigade some Tuesday Nights, and well to be honest there are nights that I know she would rather not be there, she wants to crawl around and she instead is confined to the couch or mommy’s lap, but for the most part, at least most days of the week from 10:00 AM – 10:00 PM its Holly time. Perhaps that is why I lose patience when she doesn’t want to go to bed. My way of maintaining a semblance of “control” is having some me time around 10:00 PM.

I have also embraced this new Identity, as you all know me by “Holly’s Mom” not Vicki, and well, I rather like being “Holly’s Mom” at least right now, when she is at an age where she doesn’t quite know she is a separate person from me, and I hear this can go on till 2-4 years old, I am happy not being a separate person from her. All too soon she will be a tween who is busy with her friends, talking on the phone, telling secrets, and be too Old to hang out with her Mamma, so if for a few years my life will revolve around her, I will cherish them while I can.

There are still some relicts of my old life. I still have my Celica, and I am convinced when she is in a forward facing car seat I will be able to find one that fits in the back seat of this two door, and be able to drive my “hot little ride” once more, but mostly I know this isn’t very likely, and if I decided to have another I will be a minivan mom before I realize what happened. I have all my “work” cloths, but I never feel like wearing them, I like my comfy cloths better so I can crawl around the floor and chase after her. And I keep telling myself I should sign up for a class so I can get out of the house.. But to be truthful, I don’t feel super ready to leave her with a babysitter, unless I can convince one of her friends mom’s and in less then a year she will be old enough for art projects and painting and play dough and even maybe ceramics, so why not rediscover all of those things with her.. And who needs to read a book, when I can read all those wonderful tales I love to her, Harry Potter, Narnia, His Dark Materials, and even more I haven’t even discovered yet. I am a kid at heart and I actually love children and young adult fiction, and read most of these stories long before they were films, or I planned on having a child, so really my life is just wonderful with her as my Sun and universe.

I never expected to take to Motherhood, but I feel like in having Holly as My daughter, instead of having to reinvent myself, I found out who I really am.

Pitiful

Pitiful
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

Holly is sick today. She is so pitiful. Last night I was able to get her to sleep at 11:20 but she woke up every 2-3 hours for the rest of the night. She had a little cough and it was waking her. At around 2:00 AM she vomited. It wasn’t bad though so I thought it was related to a gag reflex from her cough. That is until she woke up this morning and threw p her entire breakfast. She did this laying in bed with me and it got all over both of us and the sheets and through to the Mattress Cover, it was 5 ounces of Formula.

I cleaned us both up stripped the bed, rotated the laundry and called the Doctor. Last night Holly had a fever of 99.7 and I gave her a dose of Motrin, she had been uncomfortable for the last few nights and I thought maybe she was having teething pain, as she has been chewing on teethers to fall asleep, but I don’t think it helped. I gave her a second dose this evening when her fever was 101.5

So I told the advice nurse all of the information I could think of. She actually told me not to try to force or increase her fluids unless she has the appetite. She did say that she could be drinking between 24-32 ounces a day, so I am not going to try so hard to keep her at 24 and worry when she goes over 30. I hate that there is so much conflicting information. The doctor said that over 30 will prevent her from absorbing Iron, but then I read that new research says that if they don’t get 34-36 ounces of milk or formula today they need Vitamin D supplements. So go figure.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. She said I could feed her Yogurt but not to try and give her any other foods. She said I should try to elevate her when sleeping and use the Humidifier. She said they have special baby viks cream that is safe to use, and if she continues to get more congested, a steamy bathroom or standing near some boiling water. She told me not to worry unless she doesn’t have a second wet diaper after 12 hours, and she has them often, today was the same as every I changed her like every 1-2 hours and she was always wet so at least I knew she was hydrated.

Surprisingly she said I should expect fever but even if she is like 104 as long as she is drinking and engaging and making eye contact I don’t need to call in, I can give her some Motrin and use a wet cloth to cool her. But if she wasn’t engaging then to call. She was pitiful all day long. She wined and whimpered non-stop. It was kinda cool to hear her be so verbal, but she just continued to express her discomfort non-stop, She did eat Vanilla Yogurt three times, but it was only one four ounce container over the day. She did vomit a second time when I was changing her all over the changing table, in fact she seemed to mostly miss the chuck and got the soft cover so I had to tear that apart and do yet another load of laundry.

She did take two naps in my arms in bed but they each only lasted about an hour. She tried to play really hard and did so this afternoon for about an hour, and then this evening with Joel for about an hour, but mostly wanted mommy to hold her and we watched a lot of baby Einstein. I was able to get her to fall asleep in our bed again at 11:00 (a little earlier each night) and I set up her “nest” in the crib so she would be snuggly and her head would be slightly elevated and then transferred her to the crib. So far so good, I hope she sleeps through the night I think it will really help her to feel better tomorrow.

Yesterday I thought I might bring her to swim class and the warm water and steam would help her “dry” cough but by this morning the cough turned into congestion and she was not up for any outings. Also, since I was up 5 times with her last night and not thinking straight I forgot to call Katie and leave her a message to cancel our “extra” appointment this week, so at 9:00 Am she showed up. Joel got out of bed to answer the door and tell her Holly was sick. I felt so bad she had to come all the way over.

Another post to follow soon to tell you all about Thursday our VERY fun day!

All About Me!

So I know now in retrospect that this post is a little excessive and you probably do not want to see a gazillion pictures of me, but I found these today looking for a picture of eyes that I plan to post later this week and well, I thought perhaps it would be interesting to show me growing up to one day compare to Holly's pictures as she grows up.. So here I am...


Little Vicki (Holly's Mom)

About a year old

That hair almost looks curly

Tomboy phase

According to the picture... 16 months

Must be just under 2

I have to be 3 or 4 here, this is with Star.

I am not sure which house this is, I am around 4-5 I think.

This picture says it is when I am 5.

This is sometime shortly after maybe 6-7

I think this is in new york so I am in Second Grade

This one is Colorado so I am in 3rd or 4th grade

This is back in New York I am in 7th Grade

Is this Thurston? Was he before Crystal? We have Had Great Pyrenees since I was like 3 and we have had several now, overlapping with a new one every 5-7 years.

This is 8th grade end of year dance... It was so the 80's

This is 10th grade, its the 90's now..

This is my Senior Picture

This is High School Graduation

This is around my Second Year of College, I was already Dating Joel and going through a Hippy Phase!

This is College Graduation

Mid twenties here...

Its late and I don't have time to find some more.. But I will post some soon.

Butterfly

Today we had a very rearranged schedule. All week Holly has had trouble falling asleep, I fear she is taking after her Mommy and is too much of a night owl. It has been midnight almost every night. So this morning she woke up at 10:30.

This late start caused a delayed breakfast and no nap. Sally was running late so then around 12:45 Holly fell asleep. Sally decided that she would get some lunch and run an errand and let Holly nap. Sadly she only slept for about 45 minutes and was woken up with a big poopie diaper, but then she had a bottle and was much more cheerful.

So Sally came back and we had a good session. We played with some new cool snowflake blocks that interlocked. There were also these really cool eggs that you could open and the little chicks inside had different faces and squeaked. Holly was more interested in the little container it came from. In the afternoon we played some more but she was tired and cranky because her nap was interrupted. We had some yogurt and carrots and then crawled into my lap and fell asleep.

I transferred her into the crib and got a call from UC Berkeley Infant Study program. We were participating in a study about parenting philosophy and babies first year. We talked about feeding, sleep, and parenting issues. This was a follow up to a 1 week journal and questionnaire we filled out in December. Joel will be doing his interview next week. Holly woke up and we listened to some music and then Joel came home and played with her while I caught up on some organizing and chores that I had been meaning to do. We had some friends over tonight to watch Lost; Holly didn’t go to sleep until 11:30 again. I am not really sure how to get her on a better bedtime schedule. Waking her up earlier in the morning won’t do it, and the day she had only one nap, she still stayed up super late.

Yesterday was a much better day. We had a blast going to Studio Grow, the Wordless Wednesday pictures really say it all, but I will include some little stories here.

I am amazed at how social holly is. She loves other kids so much and is so curious and observant. While playing in the ball pit there was a little girl who was playing caterpillar she was wriggling inside a crawly tube and standing and looking out the front. She walked over to holly and said hi and then she wriggled out of the end of it and turned into a butterfly with her arms waving in the air and dancing around. As you can see this tube is opaque and very narrow, I am not sure if it is supposed to be so extra twisty and narrow or if that is from bent rims and overplay.. Needless to say I let Holly out of the ball pit a few minutes later, sat her in the large room to go and explore and she went right over the the tube. She crawled through it with no prompting and then when she got to the other side she sat looked at me and put her arms up. I was shocked.

Next we played with the climbing structure in the Wordless Wednesday pictures. What was most exciting was that she climbed up into the blue tube which was easily 12 inches off the ground and then on the other side, felt for the floor, with one hand, found the ground and climed down. This was some very advanced crawling. She played all around going in and out and over the little ledges.

Then she crawled into the next play room, as the kids were not by us and she went to look for them. There was a little girl in there who was playing with the blocks and building a maze. Holly wanted to “help” at first the little girl kept straitening the blocks as holly messed them up. She would push them strait and then when she turned to get another, Holly would push it out of place. So I told her that she should finish building the maze and then when she was done we would go around and straiten all the section. She has two younger siblings so she was accomadating. Holly had fun banging the little block on the big one and watching the girl make the maze.

The another little girl came in to play and jumped onto the “stage” to do a dance for her grandmother. Holly was so intrigued with her energy she crawled over and pulled herself up to say hello. Then she started to pat down on the stage edge as if dancing too. The little girl loved the extra audience and would come over to Holly and dance by her and holly would start to laugh and cheer when she came near. I think it is the first time I saw her laugh so much at someone else other then me and dad. It was amazing.

There was another little boy who was almost exactly 24 hours older then Holly born at the same hospital. His mom and I joked that we may have run across each other in the halls. It was great to see that they seemed to be right on course with each other developmentally with the crawling and pulling up. He liked to follow holly around and joined her near the stage.

Later when the kids stopped dancing they went to play in a tent. There was an older girl, who wasn’t as friendly and bossing the other kids around. Holly wanted to see where everyone went so she crawled over to the tent to say hi and play, but the girl told her no babies aloud. It was kind of cute. So I told Holly no babies and we went back to the ball pit for a while.

They have these roller coaster tracks that you ride a little car down a wavy track, she had a lot of fun on that, but wanted to crawl back into the other room. She found her way to the tent after the other kids moved on and was quite please with herself. Later she was playing the Asheem the other 10 month old and she crawled over to the block shelves and proceeded with sliding each block to the floor one by one.

Asheem came over and wanted to knock the blocks down too, but it seemed kind of dangerous, so his mom moved him over to the next shelf and while we chatted the two of them had a great time dropping the blocks. It was amazing how they were so much alike. And us mom joked about this being the good thing about being here; we won’t have to put them all back. I felt like the staff must feel futile trying to pick up with little kids following around them messing things up as soon as it has been cleaned.

The only bad thing that happened was Holly had a little bit of Sensory overload while we were in the lunch room. We went in and Holly finished a whole container of Squash. She was still hungry so we opened some bananas and then two little girls came in, so she started to get distracted. The little girls were Chinese I think and they were two in a playgroup of about nine, so after a few minutes the rest of them and their moms came in. So it was like 18 people having 6 different conversations in Chinese and at first I thought wow this is wonderful she can be exposed to the different sounds and language but she just sorta “wigged out” and started to cry and couldn’t handle all the stimulation.

So I picked her up and pulled her into the quiet room and then made her a bottle. After a few minutes she was calm and rearing to go. I let her crawl around the baby room for a bit and she was over by the gate ready to go. She actually was able to push it open and started looking for some more fun. After lunch we had all the fun I already described above.

We left at 6:00 and she fell asleep in the car, so I ran some errands to make an exchange at Bed Bath and Beyond, and then at Babies-R-Us. We picked up Daddy at 7:00 and then decided to go out to eat. We went to public market and Holly ate the rest of the Bananas and then we browsed around the bookstore. It was a fun day.

Luvley Award

I would like to thank The X Mom for giving me this Luvley award.

To continue this Luv-Fest please allow me to share my current Blog Luv list. Honorees, please follow these instructions and share the LUV!

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate the blogs which show GREAT ATTITUDE and/or GRATITUDE
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received the award.

and the most important new rule (That I am adding)

6. Include in this post the reason why you Love to Blog!

I would like to present this award to:

The X Mom she is so creative with her blog!

M @ And there there were two

Kia @ Good Enough Momma

Erika @ The Other Lion

Umma @ Basically FX

Kristie @ Life with my Xmen

Sarah @ Love and Survival with Fragile X

Beth @ Fragile What?

I forgot to add my own reason for why I love to blog...... First it is an easy way to keep all of our "first" grandparents and great grandparents updated on our daily lives. Living on the east coast they feel left out of a lot of things. It also is a chance to share my day with friends, and keep Joel updated with pictures of Holly when he is at work, but I also think it will be a great thing to look back on when Holly is older, I can barely remember last week let alone 3 months ago, so when she is 2 and I want to reminisce, I have this to remind me of what we did and what she was like. It is also a place to meet other moms, and process things I am thinking about.

Blog-in Against CPSIA

Sarah @ My Charmed Life alerted me of a Blog-in Against CPSIA

Don’t know about this? Check out Sarah’s very articulate post to learn more.

I just found out about this new law last week when I found out my local children's thrift store will no longer be buying or selling any used clothing or toys. Everything they already have in stock, they have to get rid of. Not only is there a Federal Law, but also a California State one. This is Ludicrous.

Wordless Wednesday