Busy Day

On Friday Katie came over for another session at 9:00 AM. Joel almost forgot again but I happen to wake up at 8:45 and asked him if he remembered, so he went and woke her and got her ready. She is pretty cranky when she first gets up especially if she is woken up. But he changed her and let her get settled before giving her a bottle, it was actually about 30 minutes into her session before she started getting hungry.

We had a lot of fun during the session. We played with the ball push toy again and she is starting to get the hang of it. We also played with the peg board, and with the connector tubes. Also Holly has not learned how to put donuts on the pole. I was so excited a few nights ago when I saw this. She does it with two hands and is very slow, intentional and full of concentration. Although tonight she did it several times and even did a star or two so she is getting better by the moment. This was great news. A few new things we are working on is stacking blocks which she tried to do but isn’t super steady at yet and also asking Holly to hand us something, “Can I have that Please” and see if she hands you the toy.

We were discussing her Oral Motor issues with tie into her eating issues, which By The Way she isn’t eating again, she is taking maybe 3-4 bites of her food and then refusing any more. I might be able to bribe another 3-4 bites with puffs when then she gets smart and decides the puffs aren’t worth it and won’t eat at all, but back to the discussion on her Oral Motor issues. Katie is a little concerned with her constant chewing, not so much that she mouths things so much but the veracity at which she does so, and is worried she might hurt herself. She takes her chewy tube and instead of chewing on it she will bite down on the edge and then tear it out of her mouth pulling hard.

Katie tried this thing where she put pressure on her jaw bone to see if that would be something she liked and fill the need of the biting, but she did not like it at all. So then we tried swinging therapy, which is a lot more like swaying. We let her lie down on a big quilt then picked up the corners and swing her side to side. She loved this. At first she got all excited and was kicking and squealing, but then after a few minutes it made her very calm. Katie says this activates the vestibular system in the same way that biting does, so in the future when she is fussy I will try it some more. We did it tonight and she liked it but it didn’t calm her as much as I hoped but it made her cheerful when she had been rather cranky.

She got mad at me tonight while she was placing donuts and stars on their holders. I got excited and clapped and told her what a great job she did, and the first 1-2 times she liked this and it made her smile, but then she got upset later when I did it after. Wait… Now I have to ask Katie about his, because I think it is a developmental milestone, where she gets “embarrassed” by being the center of attention. I have a “The Human Baby” show saved on Tivo and one of them is on emotions, so I have to watch it now and try to remember what they said about this behavior, what age it starts at and see if this fits. But she kept putting the donuts on but then if I reacted she got upset and cried at me. It was a very interesting thing to see her playing and crying at the same time.

So the other thing we did today was go to swim class which was so much fun. Holly is splashing and playing in the water and she loves it. I scheduled a meet-up there, I am a member of a mom’s meet-up group and 4 other mom’s attended who I had met previously so it was really fun to see them again. Then we saw Sarah and Isabel who I haven’t talked about for a while, but Sarah and her mom are from our Mother’s Group, which I never go to anymore, but we made friends with Sarah and Isobel and run into them all the time, we hadn’t seen them for a few weeks so it was fun to run into them again. Then finally we ran into Heidi and Kareem. These are our new friends from Studio Grow, the one who is exactly 1 day younger then Holly. I was so excited to see them. It was there first time at Swim Class and Kareem really had a lot of fun. I think next time I run into them at Studio Grow I will have to exchange Emails with Kareem’s mom.

After swim class we decided to go on a shopping spree. It didn’t end up that way, I was only going to by some Dreft and Baby oxiclean but it ended up being much much more. Firstly we got Holly a Holly sized chair. We are very excited about it. She thinks it is only useful for using as a tool for cruising and pulling herself up, but if I put her in it she sits. She isn’t very graceful getting down, she sometimes turns like she does for getting off the couch, but other times she sort of lounges forward which is ok if she catches herself but once she bumped her head. It was in slow motion so she didn’t even cry, but I will need to keep an eye on her.

Then they had this sale of getting one Fisher price toy for 19.99 get a second one of Equal or Lesser Value for Free. So I found 1 toy for 19.99 and a Second for 16.99 then I realized the second one that I loved wasn’t actually fisher price but instead of putting it back I decided to get it anyway, because I liked it so much and Holly’s birthday is coming up soon, and then found a third one that was Fisher price. So the extra one I got was a gear toy, which you will have to wait and hear about after Holly’s birthday when she opens it. But the other two were ones we opened tonight. One is an Animal Nesting Box. There is a Lion, an Elephant, and a Zebra that nest into each other they are made of softish material that is cloth and very colorful and three dimensional. There is a little monkey you can put in the last box. The other toy was like a gum ball machine. It actually goes with the round balls Joel got holly for Christmas. You put those in the top and then hit a level on the side and it lights up plays music and the balls comes rolling out. Holly loved putting the balls in the top and she loved seeing them come out, but didn’t quite get that it was the lever pushing that made that happen.

I got her two sets of 12 month Pajama’s because she is getting so tall she is growing out of all of hers, and they were both on sale, one for 3$ and one for 6$ and then I got her 3 new pairs of socks that were on sale normally 2.99 each and instead 3 for 4$ I refrained from getting her any more cloths even though I really wanted to.

The next thing I got was the Frog scooper toy for the bathtub that collects and stores all of the bath toys on the wall. I thought this came with some toys and was disappointed when I found out it did not, but I did get her a few toys including another set of nesting containers that have fish on them and little holes for water to drip through. The smallest has 1 hole, then 2 and 3 and 4 as they get bigger in size. They are very colorful too.

Let’s see. Oh I also for her birthday, not yet opened got her some large baby Lego’s they were normally 24.99 and I got them for 13.99$ so I was excited about that.

I did also get the supplies I needed and ended up earning a 15$ gift card for getting three “cleaning” type items that were on a list that included the Dreft. What was most exciting of all was that any number of these wonderful items could be Christmas Present’s from Granny because we used our Gift Card and it cut the purchase price in Half, so for me it was a steal, and I didn’t feel bad at all about all the shopping I did, because I got deals, free toys, and used our Gift Card.

While we were there Holly did not want to sit in the cart, she was fussing and wanted mommy to hold her. We rocked in the rockers for a bit while I fed her and then later we were looking at the high Chairs and she really liked this one on wheels so I pushed her around the store in the highchair in front of me pulling the cart behind me and continued shopping like that. It had a toy that suctioned on the top and she was happy and content, at least until I had to put it back and we got to check out. Joel was very excited about all of my purchases and we immediately opened most of them, but Holly is still warming up to them and so while she played with them, she wasn’t that excited yet. But soon I am sure she will keep having fun with them.

I still need to get Holly a Big Girl Car Seat, and now I am pretty sure that I want to get her a High Chair, so I will keep an eye out for those, but I have a feeling it will be part of her Birthday Bootie. I mean her Oma and Granny are coming to Visit. The other thing I saw was a little table and chair set that was set up like a tree on each side and then the chairs were four animals, the Panda, Elephant, Lion, and Monkey. It was the coolest little kid table I have ever seen. I might have to get it and keep it in the garage for 6 months until she is big enough for it, but I am afraid they might not have this one in 6 months and well I have never seen one like this before. I will think about it and see.

Holly wanted to get Daddy's glasses so bad that when he took them off and put them in the swing she decided to lounge after them. I have one determined girl!

Eleven Months and Counting!

Well I haven’t posted a substantial blog for a few days, so I have a bit to catch up on. Monday was therapy with Katie. I was teasing her about how my blog was “all” about her, but then prefaced, “ok maybe just once a week”. But on Monday we had an amazing session. Holly had woke up late and I was so worried about her session thinking she would never take a nap before her session, but Alas I was able to coax her to sleep around 11:45 and she did sleep for 45 minutes. It was just enough time to refresh her and keep her in a good mood for her entire session.

Before it starting I was thinking to myself, I really would like to work on some fine motor skills, because we spend so much time dealing with the High tone issues at both Sally and Katie’s sessions it would be nice to do something different for a change. We are coming up on our 1 year review and Katie is working on her report so we were testing some skills to see where Holly is developmentally and with her goals and milestones.

One of the things we did is check to see if Holly could find something under 1-2-3 “screens” we used handkerchiefs and Katie’s cell phone which was something Holly was very motivated to get. We would put it down, and then cover it one at a time with each screen. First only one screen, to see if she would lift it to get the phone. Then we would put that one back and cover it with a second, but not let her lift both at once, she could only lift the top one, and then the next. At a certain level the child will give up when it’s not under the first “screen” or play with the screen instead but holly lifted all three screens very determined to get the phone.

We also played with the peg and peg boards. To see if she would pull the pegs out of the board and put them back in. She did pull several out of the peg board. She did not put them back in, but we don’t expect her to be doing that yet.

Next I was showing off Holly’s new “In” skill. Katie has been working on that with her for a few weeks. She isn’t consistent with it. She does it with the specific box and balls that she learned but not with every object and container. Though she is expanding and now putting other items in the container too. But then we tested a different “Box” and she didn’t get it at first. We gave her emerging status on that. We then used the “cups” that go inside each other. Nesting that’s the word I was thinking of. After showing her a few times she then would put 1 cup into the other. She was very skilled at pulling the three cups apart but needed a little coaxing to put one cup back in. She also tried to put the bigger one into the smaller one, and then was confused when it didn’t work and banged on it trying to make it fit, which was very cute. So we were really pleased with her progress on that.

She is not rolling a ball back when it is rolled to her, but she does watch it when it gets rolled and will follow it sometimes and then play with it when she is done chasing it down, and she is throwing toys, which oh joy, is a developmental milestone I am supposed to be excited by. Actually I don’t really mind at all. Especially when they are none dangerous soft toys like the balls from her pit. I just make Joel crawl under the table and collect them at the end of the day.

Let’s see, we tested to see if she would pull something to get to something else. She is so “mobile and active” that it was hard to really tell on this one. There was a little ducky on wheels at the end of a string. A few times she did pull the string to get the duck, but more often than not she just reached for the duck directly. But she likes to move around, and it is quicker to just lounge for the duck, so it was hard to tell if she really understood that pulling the string would get her the duck. Ideally she would be sitting in a restrained way and there would be a cloth and a toy out of reach on top of it. Then we would test if she knows to pull the cloth to bring the toy closer. I think I will try and set this scenario up later this week if I remember.

She is not stacking donuts yet but she is making attempts. She pulls items off the stacker and then “tries” to put them back on but misses getting the stick into the hole and the donut falls. She has got it a few times but that is the exception not the rule. We played with “choking hazards” very little spiky glittery balls to see how she reacts to the textures and to see how her pincer grasp is, when we tested this a few months ago she was using a raking grasp to pick them up, not she is using a pincer but it is not an advanced one yet.

She doesn’t quite get pulling yet. We have these oblong shapes that click into each other top to bottom and can be pulled apart. She is very intrigued that I can hand her a chain of 4 as a single object and then I can bend it and it becomes two separate objects but she doesn’t get that she can pull them apart. I think this may be a tone issue, as we would love to get her to do it, as a chance to get her to stretcher her arms apart and we do this as a passive movement exercise but she doesn’t do it on her own yet.

At first she was only putting the large balls into the box, but then as we continued playing she started putting the blocks in too. Katie wanted to see if she would stack the blocks but she was not really into that yet. Katie had a block in front of her and was trying to get Holly’s attention on it so she could watch her stack it and Holly lounged forward before she could grab it and urgently put it “in” the box. It took us both by surprise and was so hilarious. She was very please with herself, so of course we had to applaud her.

I think she will get the stacking thing soon. She used to immediately knock down blocks when I stacked them, now she watches them and me and even makes an attempt to put a block on top of another, or on top of the box, I think if we keep playing the stacking game it will come along soon. I think I need some bigger blocks that are easier to stack too.

She is now starting to watch when I scribble; when we tried this a few months ago she was completely not interested and kept trying to grab the paper and pen. We have these cool round crayons for her once she is ready, but for now she is much more interested in chewing the plastic round holder part so I have to take them away from her when she tries to eat the crayon part. But today she did watch me draw with them at least for a few moments,

Oh, and she also played with a single toy for 3 or more minutes which is a shocker.. Well no I lie, she flips through her books for a few minutes at a time, but she often goes from one book to another so even though the “page turning” activity is several minutes, it is not usually a single book. But Katie had a shape sorter bucket with a lid that was the shape part and it had a blue handle and she just wanted to investigate the little bucket. She turned it every which way and moved the handle over and under and side to side for several minutes until she had completely examined it.

I wish I had gotten pictures of all these various activities but I never think to take them during our sessions. If Katie brings all of her toys over again on Friday I will try and take some pictures. I think our biggest delay is language. I am still going back and forth with regional center to get services. They sent me a packet called “It Takes Two To Talk” Which is part of the Hanen system. I already had the infant baby one and I think this was from the toddler one. It did have some good suggestions, many of which we are already doing. However, I don’t think the language issue is with receptive communication but rather a tonal muscle thing. I think she has trouble making her mouth make the shapes needed to make certain sounds. She really only makes B, G, M, L Rarely, A, I, E, P Rarely. She does not make D, N, T, C, F, H, R, S, W and she should at this point in the game be able to make many of those.

I am going to try and get an Eval at the mind institute when I go at the end of the month and see what Dr. Hagerman’s Speech therapist says and what suggestions she has, but particularly because it took me a good three months to get her to eat and another to have a coordinated chew I think there are tone issues in her facial muscles, and those are the types of things a Speech Therapist works on at this early age. The other thing I might try if my insurance doesn’t cover it, or if I can’t get an appointment to see her at Davis is see if I can get approval through Regional Center for just an Eval and “Training” session to get the therapist to work with me on what I should be doing with Holly re: Oral Motor for the next 6 months until she qualifies.

Receptively I think she is also starting to pick up on some signs. We use Eat, More, All Done, Play, and Change pretty regularly now, and her mood, expression and verbal response changes when we use them. For example if she is whining and we say and sign “change” she stops wining and ready’s herself to be picked up and changed. When she is done eating and whining and I say and Sign “All Done” she smiles and gets excited and starts to pull off her bib. But she hasn’t really made any attempt at expressive signing yet, at least as far as I can tell. I think this might be a tone issue also, though I hate to sound like a broken record and blame everything on that, but because she is so tight I think it might be difficult for her to make some of the “fine” movements needed to sign. I also think I might not have the eye to notice if she is doing them in her “own” way. Joel thinks she has a sign for pacifier, so when she does it I give it to her, so maybe he is right.

Oh that reminds me, I am not sure if I mentioned this previously or not but Regional Center denied me for Respite Services. It was funny reading the email which basically said, we totally think you need a break and time to yourself but all 1 year olds take constant care and supervision and there is nothing special about Holly;s care that warrant respite at this time so we hope you will consider getting a babysitter on a weekly basis for yourself. I had to laugh. I wasn’t really expecting it and I can always reapply later, but in the mean time I am working towards joining a babysitting co-op babies group. You have to be recommended by one mother and affirmed by two others, so I have been attending play dates with the group getting to know the babies and mom’s so that once I know them a little better I can join.

This is ideal for me. I would love this. I think paying for a sitter would be so hard for us, because I don’t have a personal relationship with someone who Holly knows who could do it and that I trust, other than my friends who are Mom’s and Dad’s. So what better way to save money and get a night out then to have Holly spend a few hours playing with a mom and baby she knows and recognizes? She would be comfortable with this person because prior to babysitting we would have had play dates together and she would get to know them, you can’t really do that with a regular babysitter. It’s not like they come over for free for several hours to get to know your kid before you will be willing to leave them alone. Also, since I am home all day with holly I would welcome another baby over anytime to play with her, so I think it will be easy for me to rack up babysitting points to spend.



So back to my update. I don’t remember much more from Monday. I think Holly went to bed around 11:30 and I was exhausted and followed suit. Tuesday she woke up really early at like 8:30 so she ended up being very tired by 10:45 and fell asleep for a long nap until 1:00. I tried to feed her before her nap but she refused the bananas looking at me like, “Mom – Where is my Yogurt” well mom hasn’t had time to go to the store, so she had none. She did however eat the bananas and some Squash for lunch after her nap. I opened a jar of Peaches the other day and I have been giving her a bite every meal like 6 times now I think and she pretty much hates them.


I tasted them, which is a rarity for me, I usually make Joel do that, and I liked them, but Holly, she is apparently not a southern girl, and didn’t want anything to do with them. In fact now I am giving them to her towards the end of the meal as the few times I started with them she was so suspecting that each bite would be peaches it was a bit of a battle to get her to eat more than a few bites. She has caught on that I trick her and after a few bites of something she likes I sneak in something else. Now she is catching on and checks the color of the spoon, as I usually use a different spoon, or in some cases the color of the food, or makes me put it against her lips to get the flavor before she opens wide. I guess I should be pleased she has the cognitive ability to figure out what I am doing and creatively working against me, but that doesn’t make feeding her any easier.

Tuesday night was baby Brigade and we went to see Gran Torino (more on this later) and during the film she was getting fussy so I gave her my pizza crust and she spent several minutes happily nibbling on it. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

So after lunch I was torn between going to Studio Grow or Costco. In the end playing won out, really because I wanted to selfishly tire the child out so she would be complicit during the film later that night. We had a wonderful time though, except when she was hurting herself. She is fine, but has a little scratch on her forehead. She was standing against a plastic child’s table playing with some magnetic triangle blocks and she pushed the table and it slide under her weight and she scratched her head on her way down on the edge of the table. It took off some skin and that little spot was very red but she didn’t “bleed” I rushed her to the front and got an icepack but that just pissed her off more, I don’t know if she didn’t like the cold, or if the pressure was sore but she didn’t want the icepack on her forehead. I kept it on a few minutes and then intermittently put it on again when she was calm, but that would immediately upset her again. I knew she was ok though, I used the “Cell Phone Test” and upon handing her my phone to play with she immediately stopped crying, so I knew it could not be that bad.


She ended up bumping that spot a second time, a tiny bump that she would never have noticed and has done hundreds of times standing up using the top of a bench to pull herself up, but I guess because she was sore in that spot she cried immediately, but again the cell phone calmed those tears right away.

Other then this minor incident we had a wonderful time. We ran into Kareem and his mom again, he was the little boy born exactly 24 hours before her in the same hospital. We were talking about birthday parties. I am inviting 7 new baby families to Holly’s and I realize it is a party more for her mommy and Daddy then for her, and that I am breaking the Guest per Age rule, but I am OK with that.


Kareem’s mom is inviting 60 people though, so I don’t feel like I went overboard. Her party is outside and right now she doesn’t have a back-up plan, so I hope it isn’t rainy. My back-up is moving inside from the backyard. It might be tight, but if people sit on the floor with their babies we will have room for everyone.

At Studio Grow Holly did the cutest thing. There were older kids playing in the ball pit and they were throwing the balls out. She was very intrigued with this and crawled all the way across the room to stand outside the pit and watch them. Then she decided to crawl after the ball’s and put them “In” the pit. I was so proud. I pointed at one and I said “Holly do you want to put the red ball in” and pointed to the pit and she took a scoot to pick it up then went to the pit and put it in. I was amazed. She only did this like 3 times, and I am sure it was quite by accident that her desire to throw the balls “in” lined up with me telling her to do it, but it did impress the other mamas.

Today at studio grow we played with the 2-D magnetic wall blocks and the 3-d magnetic building blocks, we played in the climbing structure. There was a mini ball pit inside one of the tubes that she had fun with. We rode the “roller coaster” and cruised around all of the climbing cushions and watched the other babies and kids play. Later we were playing with Kareem and she was very intrigued by the older kids dancing in the next room and she crawled over to the doorway and watched them. When they were done she tried to get one of the pom-poms they were using but Mommy took it away. Then Kareem came and joined her and they played with all of the musical instruments. They were very intrigued with that bin, as it was new to them and filled with toys they had not explored before, so they had a good time with that, lots of shakers and bells, a triangle and xylophone and tambourine.

Time goes pretty quickly at Studio Grow, and with Holly’s head bump I ended up feeding her two bottles, one because she was hungry and later a second to sooth her from being tired and hurt, so by 6:00 she was exhausted and ready to go. I was able to sing to her and keep her awake until we got to Daddy’s work and we went inside to visit his co-workers while picking him up, and then on the way to Baby brigade she fell asleep.


It alas was a short nap, maybe 30 minutes as she woke just before the movie started. But since she had a long day she was much more subdued then last time, and I think she quite liked eating my pizza crusts. They were soft and bready and I took off the pieces that had sauce on them so it wasn’t acidic. I was mad because we got there 30 minutes early so we could ensure a couch seat but there was a new mother’s group there and all of the couches were already taken which is pretty amazing. Our seats were ok, comfy chairs, but not as much room to let Holly climb all over us when not in the couch. The mom’s I think had gotten free passes from the same new mom’s group I am a member of, but they are in the “baby” group, the one Holly and I have “graduated” from, and they were all so so so cute. There was a 2 week old and an 8 week old, many many very little babies.

Apparently they have family night on Sunday where we can bring toddlers, so in about a month… WOW yes Exactly a Month, since today Holly is 11 months old; we will “graduate” into that group. The movie was much better than I expected. Clint Eastwood’s character was so offensive, but in a very real, I know there are people like that way and his character arch through the movie is amazing, he changes but doesn’t really, it was good. I really enjoyed it even though it wasn’t on my list of movies to see and I recommend it. After the movie it was raining, and Holly really enjoyed that. Even though it was cold cold cold, she was so intrigued by the rain on the car while we drove home. We got home at 9:30 but she was wide awake and played on her own till about 10:30 and then got clingy and was hungry and by 11:00 I was able to feed her and coax her to sleep.

This is street sweeping week. “My” car was dead. I tried to take it to the movies this past weekend and it didn’t start, so last night we jumped it, and it started as soon as the cables were connected so it wasn’t too dead that Joel told me to only drive it around the part rather then run it for 30 minutes like I wanted too. So when I parked it on the other side of the street I tested it and it didn’t start. We were supposed to jump it again tonight so I could move it back for street sweeping on the other side tomorrow but because of the rain we didn’t so it is Joel’s job to wake up in the morning and jump and move it. Let’s hope all goes well. I guess then this weekend we can jump it again and I can take a drive to let it charge up. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the battery, we just haven’t driven it since before Christmas because we forgot to move it during street sweeping last month and it is very cold, so I think it should be fine, but I am thinking about selling it again, which I don’t want to, I don’t think I will get nearly as much as I paid for it, and I am attached, but I am contemplating. I think I will decided in the next two months once I see if I can get a car seat to fit in the back.

Well this is a long post I better get off to bed now.

Socialite

Today was a long and busy day. It started by mommy waking up way super early… at 8:00ish I hit snooze though for 15 minutes as Holly hadn’t even woken up yet, but she did before the snooze button went off. Joel who is a morning person changed and fed her as I got ready to get out the door. As hard as I tried, I still barely made it out on time, technically it wasn’t on time since I was supposed to arrive at 9:00 and it was like 8:56 when I left the house, but since it was my Mother’s group, it wasn’t like a strict late and It was fine. What’s worse, the class as I mentioned earlier is in a new building and apparently the parking lot is full in the morning.

Well there is a side lot and I parked there but after getting out of the car I was told that it was in a tow away zone and that lot wasn’t for the medical center and they do tow. There was a “valet” parking in double rows in the main lot, but when I tried to use that they told me that it was only allowed for the cardiac rehab patients so I had to park on the street in a metered spot almost two blocks away and was late.. But on the upside there were three other moms in the lot behind me in the same boat so I was actually like the 4th one to show up.

Five of the other moms there with kids around 20 months old were all pregnant. It was crazy, but I guess that is about the time when you have your second, it was funny because they were dealing with all of the normal almost terrible two things, but wanted to find out if there was a quicker easier way to handle them, because being very pregnant as they were it was tiring. I sat on the wrong side of the room again, as they starting with the discussion on the other and as more and more moms came in and sat in the middle it was 10:58 when it was my turn to give an update or talk about any issues we are having. I wanted to talk about all of the various transitions that Holly is going through, but I didn’t get to say much other then we are ok, we went to Florida just before the Holidays and then it was time as the infant moms started coming into the room and it was chaos.

On the bright side Holly was so excited to be in a social environment again. She crawled all over the room and watched the other toddlers and went up to the other moms and said hello. There were lots of toys for her to play with but best of all, plenty of space and new areas for her to crawl into and cause trouble with. She did plenty of pull ups on the play bin then tried to do the same with a large decorative potted plant it was however tipable, but I saved her before it was too late and kept her away from the pebbles. She had a big poopie explosion during class which I remarkably was able to keep her and all her cloths clean. Then after class I changed a simple wet diaper and she peed. She was on a piece of “paper” that wasn’t very absorbent so it ran up her back and soaked her shirt and her green blanky.

So I changed her cloths got her cleaned up but started off the rest of my day 1 outfit and diaper down. Holly was exhausted by this point; it was way past her nap I was sure I would be able to get to sleep on her own so I started driving and decided to go all the way to Wendy’s for some chicken nuggets and a frosty. Sadly she didn’t fall asleep and was getting more and more cranky. She already had a second morning bottle, and I was trying to watch her bottles as she can only have 7-8 a day, but I knew she wanted another. So I pulled over and gave it to her and she fell asleep a few minutes later. I finished eating my lunch and read some magazines and talked on the phone and holly slept.



When she woke up we went to Tumble and tea and played. We had an amazing time. She started off in the baby area. There was a dad with his two boys; one was 7 months the other 3ish. The 7 month old was bigger than Holly his name was Ty. He was so cute. He was doing the commando crawl across the play area and Holly totally wanted to play. It is strange, everything I have read said babies don’t “play” with each other and they just play next to each other, but I find that to totally not be the case. Holly is very engaging and wants to play with other babies. She will see them with a toy and want to play with it too, but will give it back. She wants to touch there face and is very curious about them.

After letting her wake up all the way and play a little bit I decided to feed her. She ate three times throughout the afternoon. She had Banana, Peach Granola to start with about 2/3’s container. Then about 90 minutes later when she was hungry again I let her have a bottle, and then when she started getting cranky for another bottle I gave her the rest of the Banana. She did so good finishing it I opened up the Apple Sauce and she ate half of that. About an hour later she was fussy again and I tried to feed her one more time, but she only ate ½ of what was left and was very grumpy, so I let her have another bottle. She did really good though.

Tonight after we got home she ate again, we finished the rest of the Apple Sauce, then had some left over bananas from last night, and finally she had some carrots that were fresh made from Daddy. The carrots were in the veggie box and Daddy super steamed them and then put them through the baby food grinder twice. They were still very grainy though so I added some water to mix them up more. She didn’t like them. Well let me rephrase. She ate maybe 5 bites, but each time she made a face almost gagged and stuck her tongue out. But she got them down. So I think it was more about the texture then the flavor.



The other cool thing at Tumble and tea is I let Holly play in the big kid area. We even went down the slide once. She loved it, it was a huge place where she could climb stand up crawl and cruise where everything was something she could play with and explore that she had never seen before and she just had the best time ever. She had so many different kids to play with I can’t even remember all of the ones me met.

There were two 11 month olds, a few 1 year olds and a few older ones like 14, 15, 17 months. Most of the other kids were walking or just learned how. After a while we went back to the baby area again and there was another 7 month old boy who was crawling around that Holly played with and a cute little premmie who was also 7 months old he was just starting to hold himself up in a stand which I thought was amazing for a four month old, then realized he was just so little cuz he was a preemie. He was two months early born 4lbs 5ounces but seemed to be doing pretty well.

On Thursday nights they show a movie in the party room and Holly had a cranky spell. She wanted a second nap, but I was trying to have a 1 nap day so we went into the movie room for some quiet time. It was Curious George. We watched for a few minutes so she could have some quiet time. The little girl next to us was very curious about Holly and well, Holly was very curious about her and wanted to crawl over and say hello. In the end she sat in her lap and watched for another few minutes and then got to wiggly and wanted to go and play some more. She crawled around the slide under the train table behind the play structure against the wall on the cushions and blocks and even on the spinning wheel.



She ended up falling asleep on the way home even without a bottle. I thought about trying to transfer her and keep her asleep but she had only been down for like 20 or so minutes and it was only 7:00 so I woke her. After her snack with Daddy she played and played until around 10:30 and then on her last bottle of the day fell fast asleep. Tomorrow we go swimming. I told three new moms about the class today with 6 months old, so maybe I will see them tomorrow. It has been like 6 weeks since we were at the pool so I am excited.

Helps I Can

So this weekend Joel is participating in a 48 Hour game Programming contest. Which means starting at 9:00 PM Friday Night, until 9:00 PM Sunday night he will be sitting at his computer writing a computer game. This is the third such contest he has done since we had Holly, though he did them often before she was born as well. She is his little mascot and cheers him on and makes him smile when he is frustrated. The theme this time is roads, and he is writing a game called “Crossroads” which is like scrabble with cars and roads…. Anyways, Joel always warns me way in advance when these contests are coming up, as it means that I need to take Holly for the weekend, I don’t get to sleep in, and I don’t get a break from the previous week. It also means I don’t get a lot of attention after missing him the week before. We had hoped that this contest would fall on next weekend when I was out of town which is what Joel voted for, but over 30ish people voted for this weekend in comparison to like 5 for next, so alas, bad timing as it is, I always like to let Joel do these contests because he is always so happy when he does them, and that Happiness has a lasting effect.. He also always feels like he owes me one, so he takes extra special care of me afterwards and is really patient leading up to them. Plus I love playing the quirky games he makes and I don’t mind too much.

I have however been irritable this week, and not as supportive as I usually am, I have just been really tired and cranky, perhaps Holly’s teething has been rubbing off on me, or her lack of extra cheerfulness has been wearing, or maybe I am coming down with something, which I hope is not the case just before I have to travel. One of the things that came up last week at my mother’s group was post-partum depression. One of the mom’s has a 5 month old and is feeling blah, but thought that you could only have PPD right after the baby was born. Jennifer, the facilitator, but also the parent Education person for the hospital told us that it could occur anytime in the first year. She says it often doesn’t even look like depression at first, it could be anxiety, restlessness, insomnia. Since I have been those things I was getting worried, and asked her about it, so she asked me if I had made any changes in the last few weeks and I told her that this week I stopped breast feeding. So then we all talked about that. She warned all the moms that when you stop breast feeding all of your hormones change again, just like when you get pregnant, and it is very common to be depressed for 2 weeks after you stop breast feeding. She knew about my history and struggles with this, so she said, on top of the fact that I must be extremely hormonal, I had a lot of struggle with getting it to work, so that I must obviously be a little sad that I am not doing it any more. Which is true, I really wanted to make it to the 1 year mark, but my milk levels were just decreasing so much it hardly seemed worth the effort and was taking a lot of time for very little return on the investment. I was down to about 5 ounces a day which is barely 20% of Holly’s food intake, but it was taking me 2-3 hours a day to get that much, so when she was napping, instead of eating or getting rest or blogging, I would be pumping, the same at night, instead of going to sleep, I would have to stay up and pump, and since I was producing less, the time seemed to be too much of an impact on my life. I am assuming these hormone changes have a lot to do with the likelihood that I will now get my period. And I think some of my tiredness and achiness could also have to do with it. My left side feels ok, but my right is engorged and sore. I suppose I could pump to relieve a little pressure, but I am not sure how that all works, and if that sends my body a weird message.

So with all of that going on Jennifer told me that she thinks I am fine and that it is just hormones, but that every mom has a higher risk of getting PPD when they stop breastfeeding, due to the natural hormone change, and since I am already feeling a little blah, to simply keep an eye on it. I think a lot of it has to also do with missing my family, since it is the Holidays, so I am going to put it out of my mind, now that I literally put it out by getting it down on paper, and not think about it until after my visit to Florida. I am really looking forward to it and think it will be a lot of fun, and when I get back, Joel only has to work for like 3 days and then he has 2 weeks off, so I will get a lot of rest, relaxation and time with him, so I think the Holidays will be great.

Holly is napping now; she was very resistant and cranky. She ell asleep in the car on the way home from our playdate, for like 5 minutes and sorta woke when we got home, so I thought I would be able to easily transfer her and she would go back to sleep, but no, it took like another 90 minutes before she would take her nap, we tried three times, with eating and playing between, but she finally fell asleep around 1:30.

Our playdate was fun. We met with a special needs meet-up group. So Sarah, Zak, and Quinn were there, and it was fun to see them again, Quinn is looking great, he was putting on his socks, and was very mellow and hanging out. And we met Meredith and Griffin. Griffin is three and goes to school with Quinn. It was interesting to talk with Meredith about her transition from the regional center to the school district. She is part of Oakland unified, so it will be a little different for me, but still, she was with perseverance able to get the services she needed for her son, so I was happy to hear about that. I am thinking I will push Leela about the speech therapy, but I will wait until after I do the Evaluation with Dr. Hagerman’s Speech Therapist and get a referral, I think then it will be harder for Leela to argue. Through the Regional Center they don’t even do an eval until 18 months, and I would prefer Holly to nap have delays, so if I wait until 18 months she might be behind, but if I get someone now, it will help her to stay on track.

Tumble and tea was super busy today. This is where our group meets the first Saturday of every month. There was a birthday party, a sing-a-long, and a art session all going on at the same time and a bucket load of kids, but not a lot of other babies, so we were able to stay in the baby area and hang out, but holly got rather fussy I think from all the extra noise after less than 90 minutes and given that we are normally there for a few hours I was surprised, but we aren’t typically there in the morning, and I think her morning nap was on the horizon contributing to her mood.

Well that’s it for now, I am off to hunt for some kind of lunch.