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.

All By Myself!

All By Myself!
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

On Tuesday Holly had her 8 month Pediatrician Visit. Her Doctor was thrilled with her. She was a little show off though. I told the Doc she is crawling, and she couldn’t believe it, and asked if I thought I could get her to do it. So I sat her down on one end of the table and held out some toys keys and shook. She lounged forward and easy as pie crawled the entire length of the table in a traditional hands and knees style. Until then I had only really seen 2-3 steps then rest n sit or rotate of scoot, but no, she took like 10-15 steps easy and then when there was no where left to go, I handed her the keys her reward and she was pleased with herself.

Sadly she had to get two shots and was not please with that. We also were supposed to do a urine test and we didn’t have any, so the Doc showed me these little bags that “stick” onto her over her girly parts and there is a bag to catch the urine and it tucks back into the diaper. So the Doctor stuck it on her in hopes that she would pee herself when she cried from the shots, or after I fed her a bottle to sooth her. She however was super dry and didn’t pee at all. I thought I would leave the bag on and capture the pee, but then my mom told me it had to be fresh and it was 5:00 when we left the office,

I guess I thought I could bring it back the next day. So I forgot to take the bag off when we got to tumble and tea and she peed, but the bag didn’t work for “sh*t” it basically blocked the diaper from absorbing any of her pee, but stayed dry inside and leaked all over her cute outfit and the outside of the diaper. I was not pleased. So I peeled it off and today her girly parts are all red looking. I put some burts butt cream on her, but then she had a blow out poopie diaper (its all that damn solid food she is eating now) she can’t be contained and it stuck to the cream, so it was really hard to clean off, which of course happened at the super market.. Oh Joy!

So anyways, back to yesterday… the leaking episode was also while we were out playing at tumble and tea. There were 4 babies there Mia, 13 months, Lioma 12 months, Kira 11 Months, and TJ 10 Months. Mia and Lioma were good walkers. Kira was just learning and she was as cute as all get out, she walked with her hands reached out in front of her and like a little waddler and was still unsteady so she would trip over blocks, and well Holly… She was the littlest of them all. TJ was rather Mellow, he could crawl and I think Cruise, but he just sat and hung out. So basically lil ole holly was getting trampled on. One little girl was holding a toy in front of Holly, who thought she was handing it to her, so she grabbed it. The she looked at her and grabbed it back. It was quite cute, and I guess payback for the other day when Holly was bullying the Non-Mobile babies taking their toys.

TJ and Holly were playing with these blow up balls one was like twice the size of her head and the other was almost as big as her. They were slightly deflated so TJ who was a little more coordinated could hold them in one hand, his hands were big, so then he takes the ball from Holly’s lap and raises it above his head (it was as big as him) it was the most adorable thing every. So she then takes that as an opportunity to grab the other smaller ball that he had been playing with, so then he starts to fuss and cry and get upset and puts the big one down, so she drops the small one and he takes it back and is happy. Ahhh…. To be a baby.. the DRAMA :-)


Holly was very cute and then she crawled over towards me pulled herself up and stretched out her arms, so I picked her up and made her a bottle and she fell fast asleep in my arms. I guess the shots and all the excitement wiped her out. She stayed fast asleep as I gathered all my things and got her all strapped into the carseat. I had Joel take the carried upstairs and she slept another hour before I thought I should wake her, worrying that she would be up to midnight otherwise. She woke up ate and played some more.. She was restless in her sleep, the Doctor says she has 4.. yes you heard me right FOUR upper teeth about to break through, so she has been teething, and with the shots was a little cranky and sore, so we gave her some Motrin in her goodnight bottle and she slept, well like a baby until 8 this morning.

Mommy on the other hand was up way too late working on a project, I have been a little bummed out and blah, I think missing Joel and my family, so that always makes me not sleep, so I was so so so so tired this morning, I convinced Holly to go back to sleep with me so I didn’t have to get out of bed, she played for like 30 minutes and then fell asleep for another 90, so we woke up in time for Sally to come by for Holly’s PT Session.

She was still pretty cranky even though she was changed, had just had a poopie… And remember I said she had a blow out at the supermarket, total surprise since she already had one that afternoon, and she had napped, so she had NO reason to be cranky.. but she was. We went through her H.E.L.P sheets, checking off which skills she can / can not do, and basically she can’t do most of the ones in prone, because she is not extending her neck. I asked if she would be more motivated later to extend her neck because it would make things like walking, crawling climbing easier, but Sally doesn’t think so, she says we just need to work on relaxing and loosening the tight back muscles and strengthening the week ones. She thinks she might have some sensitivity, as she starts to whine and whimper as soon as you touch her shoulders and doesn’t let you get in there. I wish there was something more I could do, I am going to try and do more baby massage I know I don’t do it enough, but she doesn’t really like it and I don’t want to force it, but perhaps with limits even 5 minutes a day is better then nothing. She just makes life harder on herself, because she is capable of moving her neck and head back, she just doesn’t.

After Sally she took a nap and we ate some more prunes, she is a little behind on the eating, but we have increased to twice a day, but she still only eats about ½ of a medium container, or like most but not all of a small container. The Doc said to give her scrambled eggs and yogurt, so we may try that this weekend, I got YoBaby, because I couldn’t bear to get that huge tub of “plain” yogurt knowing she will never eat it all and we won’t use it.

After her prunes we picked up daddy to get the veggie box then dropped him off went to bext buy to get 2 spindles of 50 DVD-/+R for 9.99$ each. (I have 145 gigs of movies and tv to burn for my sister) and then to the supermarket. Because of the rain and it being the day before Thanks Giving it was a mad house.. First I had the Diaper, then I couldn’t find anything, I think this is because they were trying to make it easier and had things all in “Special” displays at the front of the store, but I used a different entrance and didn’t see that, and nothing was where it normally is in the isles. Then ½ through she got hungry and we had to stop for a bottle, I finally got into the car and on the road by 7:15, Joel was already home. Holly was clingy tonight and we tried to put her down to sleep twice in the crib, once in the swing, but she just wanted her momma, who wanted her dinner, but Holly won and I held her in my lap until she fell asleep, I was able to reach over her and finish eating and by 10:30 We transferred her into the crib.

Joel is going to make me get up early tomorrow to watch Holly while he cooks, I just know it so I better go to bed.. ohhh darnn, after I pump that is.. Which the Pediatrician told me to stop doing, so I am transitioning away from it over the next two weeks so I will be done by the 10th when I go to Florida, the pediatrician said she only wanted me to breast feed till 4 months, was thrilled that I made it to 6 months, and that I don’t need to torture myself and continue.. She holly never latched very well, so after 9 weeks of drama and horrible breast feeding and tantrums and hours on the boob, We stopped and I have been pumping and giving her breast milk through the bottle, it works, is easy and quick and I was giving her first 2/3 then ½ not its like 1/3 of the food she eats, but she eats more and I make less, so nowadays getting only 4-6 ounces a day, it hardly seems worth it, so I am stopping.. I am not looking forward to getting my period again though.. I have this horrific image of getting my period, and Holly’s teeth breaking through on the plane to Florida, I know that will be just my luck.

Climbing Cushion

Climbing Cushion
Originally uploaded by vczdavis

Not much to report today. I was up last night way too late.. till like 5am, I just had a lot to do:

1. Made this Cushion Cover, it took about 3 hours. I was very happy with it. By this time it was 2:20 am

2. Had to pump, I am thinking of stoping, Holly is 8+ months old, and it seems like a hassle to bring the equiptment to Florida in December, she will be 9 months when we go. I planned on Breast feeding until she is 1 years old, but I did do it all the way up until 8 months... so I don't know, should I stop or should I keep doing it. Then it was 3:30

3. My network drive has been broken since we went to Virginia, it has like 650 gigs of data, music, movies, tv, photos, ect. Including like 145gigs of movies and tv I planned on burning and sending to my sister in Azerbaijan. I got it to turn blue but could not see it on the network. Last night I finally got it to work. YEAH my data is all there so today we set up the External hard drive from Costco and I am slowly transfering all of the data there, then this week I will slowly start burning CD's. Thinks like the first Season of The Muppet Show, or Kitchen Nightmare. Wow... now it was 5:00 so I went to bed.

So this morning Joel got up with Holly and he said it was like Christmas Morning she was so excited to see this foam climbing block. She was sqealing with Glee and began to climb all over it, they had a very fun morning. She she took a nap at 10:30 and Joel worked on a Script for a contest he is in. It is round 2. He got first place in round 1 a few weeks ago, and I woke up at 1:00.

We hung out in the afternoon, and in the late day we walked to the park and went swimming. Holly was exahusted and went to bed at 9:00.

That was our day, not much to report, just hanging around the house and playing with Holly.