Maternal Musings

Giftedness rears its ugly head again

2010-10-10T18:00:00.001-07:00

Labels don't belong on children. Within a week of starting a new preschool, we were taken aside by several teachers and told "Your child is highly gifted. He doesn't belong here. We don't have anything that will challenge him." It was quite ironic, really, because their environment challenged him so much his emotions were running away with him more often than not, leaving him experiencing rage routinely and being chastised for "being bad."

I don't really want to talk more about the failings of that preschool environment. I'll leave it at the teachers were great with genuine interest and affection and did their best in a bad system. What I want to talk about is why on earth a preschool thinks it has nothing to offer a three year old boy. After all, we thought the program had a lot to offer him or we wouldn't have chosen it!

It is beyond comprehensible to me that a program with gross motor activities beyond compare, highly trained, engaged teachers and a well-stocked room full of three-year-olds has "nothing" to offer a "gifted" child. "Gifted" children certainly stand out, often for the wrong reasons, so it's readily apparent when the program doesn't work for them. But surely one-size-fits-all education fails most children (or at least half of them), even if it's not quite so easy to spot?

We have dug deep into our pockets and tightened our belts to enroll our son in a Montessori program. He was a completely different child within one day. The child who had spent seven months having "bad days" because he "didn't listen to his teacher" suddenly cites "listening" as his favourite part of the day. Whereas before he was a frazzled, over-tired wreck every evening, at the end of his second day he spent the evening singing (much of it in the shower).

Montessori isn't the only program that treats children as individuals, giving them the room to grow into their unique personalities in a positive environment. We were blessed with a truly remarkable daycare in Nashville. Grace M. Eaton Childcare Center recognised when he arrived as a cruising and crawling 5.5 month old that he was "different." They didn't say "he doesn't belong here," just like they didn't say that to the parents of the blind child in his class, or the child with severe speech delay a few years later.

We are now committed to keeping our son in Montessori until the second grade, when "challenge" activities start being offered to "gifted" children. Right now we haven't given up on public education, but after recent experience, when we get there, we'll be on the look out to see if public education has given up on our child.

Onto Math Concepts

2010-04-18T18:20:00.000-07:00

The wee man has had a two-year-long tussle with letters and phonics and is now up to a point of sounding out 3- and 4-letter words. The sense of wonder when he sounds the words out and then makes sense of the sounds is a joy to behold. It's only about one word a day on average that we encourage him to sound out, it's not like he's actually reading or even close to reading per se. Mostly we focus on word recognition. "Can you find the word 'Spot?' That's right sss-ppp-oh-tt, Spot. Now can you find another place where you see the word Spot?" Again, by "mostly" I mean a couple times during his bedtime stories or while we're driving in the car if he happens to have a book.

His brain has finally made peace with words, for now, and so it is now grappling numbers. He has had sequences down for ages; he can sing the alphabet song, mostly say the days of the week in order, count to 14 (but then leaps to 16, 19, despite my best efforts of drawing comparison to 4-5-6) and count to twelve in Spanish. We've toyed with addition and subtraction concepts (How many people are in the car? If one gets out, how many are left?), but today I noticed he's doing division. This morning he put the eggs in the pot to boil them -- six of them -- and announced that here were two for each of us. Two for Mommy, two for Daddy and two for him. When the chicken Cordon Bleu came out of the oven, again he announced that there was one each.

We're also introducing money to him -- it is, after all, Financial Awareness Month or so NPR told me yesterday. When we go to the Kids Drum Circle on Saturday mornings at Bongo Boy Music School, he now hands over the cash. He puts the dollar bill into the machine at Meijer that releases the locking cart with a TV inside and when we're done with our shopping he puts the penny into the horse.

On Thursday he was pestering me for bubble gum out of those annoying candy vending machines and I told him I didn't have the money for it. He persisted. I told him the machines take a "special coin called a Quarter" and I didn't have any. I opened my purse, tipped the coins out and found a quarter. He was delighted. Yesterday he found his "treasure box" that has his fake (and some real) money in it and he went through each coin: "Mommy, is this a Quarter? Daddy what about this one?"

Introducing a Second Language

2010-04-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

When I was pregnant with the small boy, I intended to speak Afrikaans to him from the word go. Once he arrived, though, it just didn't feel right. To be honest, I felt a bit of a fraud. I am, in fact of Afrikaner stock. My grandmother goes back to the Voortrekkers and my father learned English at school. Whatever his reasons, he chose not to share his language with his children and when struggling through at school, we never thought to ask him for help.

I remember the first time I spoke Afrikaans without being required to: I was in my third year of university and we had to do a 3 week survey camp in a tiny west coast town. I called the lovely Tannie to inquire about her flat for let and when the phone call concluded successfully, my flatmate and I looked at each other in amazement. Soon, most of my memorable social interactions involved speaking Afrikaans.

There was the river rafting trip with Anne and a pile of young men from Riviersdal, and then weekends visiting Jeanne and Kelly in Albertinia. Those turned into weekends in Wilderness and nights out in Mosselbaai. Next thing I knew I was living in George and working in Knysna on a construction site alongside Afrikaners. I had a moment of clarity when I found myself embroiled in an Afrikaans conversation with another Soutie.

My journey with Afrikaans is a curious one. It was forced upon us at school and delivered without houding. I remember a friend in London being astounded that I didn't know the words or tune to Hansie Slim. (I still don't.) Sure there was Wielie Waalie and Pippi Langkous on TV, but there were no nursery rhymes, songs, folk tales or anything cultural in the curriculum.

Instead we had posters on the wall remind us about conjunctions and prepositions and we spent as much time studying taal (grammar) as voorskrif (prescribed reading) and opstel (composition). Quarterly mondeling (oral) was universally feared. In high school, the Afrikaans classrooms overlooked the pool, and we whiled the classes away watching people brave the high board. (People did bomb drops or turned back; I only saw one person actually dive off.)

Johnny has been introduced to Spanish over the past 9 months or so and is really enjoying it. Unfortunately, I'm only a couple steps ahead of him and while we're still exploring Spanish (a book of Spanish songs just arrived today), it's time to add Afrikaans to the mix.

Dealing with a "Gifted Child"

2010-01-30T05:59:00.000-08:00

My child has never followed the schedules published in baby books. He was born at 41 weeks after two days of labour and had some head control immediately. He rolled over at 3 months, crawled, sat and pulled up to stand at 5.5 months, walked before 9 months, potty trained by 18 months and coming up on his 3rd birthday is writing his name unaided and learning how to read.

This development path invokes a variety of responses. Shock, awe, disbelief, inadequacy. There isn't a lot of nonchalance. As a parent to a "different" child, I feel awkward. I want to celebrate my son's successes, and be proud of each milestone. Surely every mother earns that right -- for a lifetime -- after enduring pregnancy and childbirth? But when I shout from the treetops about the latest milestone, I feel like an insufferable braggart. A lot of the time I talk instead about the things he doesn't do yet, like sleep through the night or put himself to bed.

We knew before we got married that our offspring would be likely to fall into the "gifted" category. That isn't to say we were daydreaming about introducing our child, the rocket surgeon. We haven't started saving for a Harvard education. (We are only just embarking on paying for our own education.) But the advanced warning our own ahead-of-the-curve development paths has not prepared us for the responsibility of shepherding the development of our own child.

Early childhood education is very flexible. His daycare is absolutely brilliant. They follow the Hawaii Early Learning Program (HELP), which has two books (birth-to-3, 3-to-6) that sequentially list development milestones in a host of categories. Each month they pick about eight milestones that he's working towards and every week they engage him in play activities to help him practice those skills.

He finished his birth-to-3 at 27 months and already is well into his 3-6 book. What do we do if he moves beyond his daycare's resources by the age of 4? The public education system is set up well for dealing with "average" development track children, and reasonably well for children whose development is slower. However, both the husband and I have negative experiences from our parents' and teachers' best efforts at accommodating us in a normal school environment.

My nearly-3yo has the reading skills of a 5-6 year old, the gross motor skills of a 4yo and the social skills of a 3yo. If he stays on this development track, it is going to be very challenging to provide a positive school experience for him. He is a sensitive little boy, which would be hard enough on its own, but he's going to be a very tall boy who thrives on positive reinforcement and will always have his hand up shouting out the answer.

I feel isolated as a parent at the best of times, but I have found a great resource of likeminded mothers online. However, as I grapple with how best to educate my son beyond the age of five, it feels like I'm in a vacuum.

Finally Weaned

2009-12-30T16:56:00.000-08:00

I don't want to speak too soon (like with the night time bedwetting which was over for at least a month and has returned with a vengeance), but I do believe the menace is finally weaned! He last "tried" to have "some nana" last Sunday (and he didn't really get any), but still asked as recently as yesterday morning. When I refused him he got out of bed in a strop and headed to the lounge to turn on the TV.

Chivalry Lives

2009-04-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

In the playground today Elizabeth decided to take off her shoes. The problem with this is that Elizabeth is a pansy when it comes to walking barefoot on anything other than grass. When she has to walk across stones (round river stones, with which the playground is populated), she wants to hold onto your hand and lean all of her body weight on you. Of course the stones don't actually hurt, so this is overly dramatic, but she's 2 and she's not used to walking around barefoot.

With her (patient as a saint) mom's help, she made it over to the slide. She climbed up and played around on top so her mom sat down again. When she was ready, she slid down, and landed on the stones to a sea of more stones to cross. Panic struck her face. Her mom and I sighed. Then Johnny walked up to her, held out his hand, and walked her to the stairs. I nearly cried.

Another small communication explosion

2009-04-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

I marvel at Johnny's mind sometimes. On Monday on the way home he said "No, we do not go home. We need to get diesel for your car." It has been over a week since we've put diesel in, nowhere near where we were, and I cannot fathom the trigger for this.

He has been telling more stories. I like his stories. He made the most of the tornado warnings with "The siren made a noise. We need to go in the basement with a flashlight." He told everyone. Repeatedly. Sometimes he'd trip up on the words and give away his age. He also tells me about his day at school now.

Has it really been three months?

2009-03-22T12:36:00.001-07:00

Wow. Time flies. Let's see...

Johnny appears to be dropping his nap. It sometimes takes him half an hour to fall asleep at school, and at home he sometimes drops off on the boob, then wakes up furious when I pull him off and won't go back to sleep. For a few weeks I've been able to get him to fall asleep in the stroller, but no more of that... I'm distraught. I still need my naptime!

Some firsts...
- Yesterday he was drawing letters. Deliberately. Z, F, G, J. Correctly formed. Precocious twerp.
- Last night he slept in his big boy bed in his own room, at least until 5:30am when I took him in with me. He woke up at 11pm for a nappy change, then 2am and 5am for milk. When he woke again at 5:30am I decided the cluster feeding had started and we were doing it in my bed. He slept until 8:30 instead. Glorious. (Well, he'd gone off at 10pm the night before thanks to a v. late nap and some nasty candy/cooldrink at the neighbour's.)
- Friday night he was happy with a cup of warm milk instead of a boob when he woke up at 11pm. Hurray! Let the night weaning commence!
- He hit his first piñata yesterday at Andreas's birthday party at the neighbours. Big success. He also had a blast on the trampoline.
- Last week he blocked his first toilet. His new shoes were so exciting he forgot he needed to poo and made a huge ball of it in his undies. Must remember to put him on the toilet ASAP when we get home and it's been a few days since he's made a poo.
- Last week he made his first consumer decision. (Well, since the screaming-in-the-Walmart-parking lot "I WANT TO GO TO TRADER JOE'S" incident.) At Trader Joe's sample hutch he pointed to a display box and said "Mashed potato." Then he sampled the mashed potato and then after polishing it off, picked up a box, said "we need this" and put it into the cart. At least it was mashed potato and not candy. (Actually he doesn't like most candy -- hurray!)

Well, I'm off to plant things while the boys play at the library.

First time pumping in 9 months

2008-12-30T05:18:00.000-08:00

Back at work after a week and a half at home with Johnny, by lunch time I had gone up three cup sizes and pulled out the breast pump. I haven't pumped since the contaminated shipment to the IBMP a good 9 months ago.

Back then, there was lots of fore milk and if I kept pumping I'd get the hind milk out and there would be about 8% volume of cream which settled on the top. I've read about how milk gets creamier as you nurse for longer, but yesterday was quite a surprise. Given the engorgement, I was expecting about 4 oz of fore milk on each side, so you can imagine my surprise when it took me 20 minutes to get 2 oz out of each side and it was almost exclusively hind milk! Even after 4 hours in the fridge, the cream had not settled up to the top.

Johnny never really drank expressed milk except for maybe a month from 9-10 months when he could do his bottle himself. It was quite a surprise then to watch him positively chug the milk down in the car, not a drop spilled. (This from the boy who delights in upending open cups!) It has inspired me to keep pumping for him.

Over-stimulated Toddler Aaagh!

2008-11-28T18:37:00.000-08:00

We made a 750 km car journey to my cousin's house to spend my granny's 90th birthday all together as a family on Thanksgiving (i.e. Thursday). My cousin has a 3yo and an 11 month old and Johnny is in toddler heaven. We arrived yesterday afternoon and he got way overstimulated/overtired and we all had a hard time at bed time. He woke up an hour later, sat up, said "Katie. Where is Katie?" and then lay down again and fell asleep. Then he woke up at 5am and didn't go back to sleep until 7am, and after a morning of shenanigans just could/would not take a nap. We tried the car journey trick, and I thought he might fall asleep while cuddling me in a front carry in the patapum around the shops, but no. He did that toddler narrative that they do at bedtime for the first time.

Eventually when we got home we whisked him upstairs without seeing the other two and after a small struggle he crashed like a ton of bricks. Bedtime tonight was another nightmare. He'd be 90% asleep and then suddenly pop up and say "Where is Ouma?" or "I want to play" and then when he finally gave up, he started trying to count to 10. He knows parts of the sequence, not all of it, and the middle part he knows seven, but kept tripping over it. It was very cute but so frustrating. The poor boy's head was spinning. I hope the car journey back cures him, or it will be a long way home.

Come on Mommy

2008-11-25T22:23:00.000-08:00

He learned "Come on" from his friend Elizabeth. He has used it nearly every morning for over a week now when he gets up. I've tried "Come on Daddy, Mommy's sleeping" but he won't be swayed. Now when he's falling asleep and I sneak out the room if he turns over and opens his eyes and doesn't see me, he says "Come on Mommy." It's the cutest thing, like he's inviting me to get into bed with him.

I haven't had too much more success with "nana all gone," but last night during a 2-hour teething Oh Yeah I'm Really Awake Now marathon "nana is sleeping" did work. Unfortunately he still wanted to cuddle. In his bed. And it took at least an hour to get him back to sleep (after half an hour of toddler tossing to the sounds of "other side Mommy" and then Mommy needs to wee, Johnny needs to wee, Mommy's getting Johnny some milk out the fridge, Johnny's raiding his toy shelf... aaagh! But yes, after "nana sleeping" he accepted that, and cuddled to sleep. Such a pity he didn't pay any attention to "Mommy's sleeping Johnny sleep too." Sigh.

All Gone

2008-11-21T19:48:00.000-08:00

What a weird bedtime. All went according to plan: dinner, bath, nappy & jammies, then books on the couch with Mommy & Daddy, night nights and then mad dash into the bedroom, eagerly climbing into bed, and "nana please Mommy." The problem was that he didn't fall asleep between the two sides of nana and then was increasingly awake. So I left. Not the disaster I imagined.

We exchanged about 3 mintues of "Mommy!" -- "Sleepy time Johnny. Night Night." (repeat) Then he started crying, so Daddy went in. He shouted "Mommy! Mommy!" for about 10 minutes. At one point it sounded like he was giving in and going to sleep, but he was really just winding up to have a melt-down. I went back in, Daddy left, he tearfully said "Nana please Mommy" and he latched on. He sucked for 30 seconds, said "Nana all gone, " rolled over and went to sleep.

Five minutes later he must've rolled over and stirred and saw I was gone because he started crying and when I got in there he asked for nana and I said "Nana all gone" and he repeated "all gone" and rolled over and went to sleep! Happy as a lark! Bizarre. Maybe this night weaning thing won't be so hard after all?

I expected "all gone" to be something devastating for him, but I suppose that (a) he's used to draining the boobs and them refilling like magic and (b) he's reaching the age where he can't be fagged to get all the hind milk out. In hindsight, "all gone" is a concept he has understood for many months, mostly related to food. If he's hungry in the car and we run out of food and I say "all gone" he takes it well in stride, so I suppose the concept of "all gone" is temporary in his interpretation: he is always satiated before too much longer. I should probably try and remember not to use "all gone" when I mean that something is permanently gone. Hmm.

Look at me with the long sentences.

2008-11-16T12:24:00.000-08:00

It seems Johnny saves all his big sentences for his Daddy. In the car, after 15 minutes of squabbling over where Johnny's feet should go (Daddy thought neither in his back nor on his shoulder, Johnny disagreed), Johnny came out with: "Stop! Be nice to Johnny's feet, Daddy." Then, at bed time, "Move Daddy! I want cuddles from Mommy now."

Farts are funny

2008-11-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

Johnny passed a very important rite of passage this evening: his first amusing fart. He was cuddled up with me on the couch having his "na na" and his little butt sounded the alarm. "Was that your bum bum?" I asked, and he stopped nursing for a moment as he thought about it, and then giggled and giggled and giggled.

His thinking is really getting quite abstract now. On Saturday morning I watched him solve quite a complex puzzle. He wanted a stool to stand on so he could reach the sink. First he pushed the box-shaped soft cooler bag up to the sink, but when he stood on it his feet sank to the floor. Then he went into the living room, got down on his hands and knees, and pulled his wooden box out from under the coffee table. He got it all the way to the kitchen doorway where he encountered a Daddy Roadblock (which was oblivious to the back-story but knew that Mommy Needed Him To Watch Johnny For Five Minutes) and there was a bit of a tantrum until I saved the day by saying "excuse me Daddy" and lifting the box up over the step it had snagged on and let him complete the puzzle. When he was triumphant at the sink and just about to get stuck into wreaking havoc on the dishes, Daddy was able to distract him with putting his nappy and Jammies on for his nap.

I also had the realisation this weekend that we have conversations now which mostly make sense.
"Are you hungry?"
"Yes."
"Would you like some cheese?"
"Yes, white cheese." (Tootles over to the fridge and opens the door and the cheese drawer.) "Help, Mommy."
"Here you go."
"Thank you Mommy."

It's no uninterrupted night's sleep, but it sure is useful being able to communicate his needs.

Fish eat Johnny's toes.

2008-11-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

We do have a lot of fun in the car in the mornings. I'm not wild about the habit of removing his shoes just before we get to daycare, but if he does something adorable like having his rubber fish eat his toes and has the courtesy to narrate it for me, it's hard not to smile anyway.

And the diamond mining begins...

2008-11-03T20:38:00.001-08:00

Johnny has learned to pick his nose. "Mommy boogers in nose. Here Mommy."

More development and a parenting validation

2008-11-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

In recent weeks we now have "yes," which has made life much easier. In the past all we had was "no," which could've meant no or yes, but now we're firmly at "yes" and "no" and it's quite a relief.

Alongside this burgeoning communication, comes the expression of his will. Saturday morning he announced that he wanted grapes for breakfast. After the grapes we made eggs and pancakes, so Sunday morning he got up requesting a repeat performance. I'm less impressed with the new backseat music critic, however. "Off Mommy!" "Mommy where is k-k-k?" (His alphabet CD from the library, which has played no small role in keeping him entertained on the way to and from school and in him learning the alphabet.)

Toddler times bring hitting, biting, kicking, etc. and he's nowhere near able to tell what hurts and what's fun. We handle unwelcome physical attacks with a firm, eye-level "no, we don't hurt our friends/mommy/etc." and then a forced apology with cuddles. This morning he accidentally bumped the bathroom door into my head, and when I exclaimed "Ouch!" he grinned broadly and said "Sorry Mommy." The other validation that we're Doing Something Right is in the middle of the night when he wakes up and he says "Please Mommy Na-na. Please Mommy." His dear father in an equally sleepy state acts more like a drunken sailor.

Development catch-up

2008-10-24T19:29:00.001-07:00

Colours - Red, yellow, green, black, white, brown, blue, orange, purple.
Alphabet - A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, T, X, Y (and maybe S, U, V, W, Z). Instead of learning the names/sounds, we started with an associated word, e.g. M = Mommy. Then we got a CD from the library which we listen to twice a day in the car, which has letters and sounds and we throw on our word association.
Shapes - Circle, triangle.
Words - cow, moo... but occasionally he gets them muddled up.

All of this was mostly learned on the toilet with an alphabet puzzle board, books and a Tupperware shape sorter. He gets lots of practice with colours in the car though. "Yellow bus!" "Orange big truck!" "White car!" At least he's not backseat driving.

I am trying not to take too much notice of the fact that Daddy only has to tell him something once and he's got it. After reading a book about the colours of a rainbow at least a dozen times at bedtime for him to manage only "purple" and "yellow," I left him home with dad for a day and came back to a child who knew all the colours.

Is there a pattern emerging?

2008-10-23T19:38:00.000-07:00

Three nights this week Johnny has only woken up twice. Hey, maybe he'll sleep through the night before the age two after all. (Yeah right.)

Big weekend!

2008-09-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

We've been playing with animal puzzles (you know, one piece per animal) every toilet break for a good two months now. He knows all 18 of the animals (please may Mommy have the guinea pig. Thank you. please may Mommy have the turtle. Thank you. Please may mommy have the parrot...) and Mommy is Quite Bored with them. They were only $3 so we hit up Wally World on Saturday afternoon for two new ones; one is fruit, the other vehicles. He got to play with the fruit one a little before bath and bed, and was frantically asking "Whatis this? Whatis this?" and learning all of the fruits. He fell asleep easily enough, but come 4am his head was spinning.

After half an hour of tossing and turning, still with dry nappy, I asked "Do you need to wee?" He got up, climbed off the bed, and headed for the coffee table. I redirected him and the nighttime policy is no toys on the toilet, but he was quite upset so I gave in, he made a big wee, and we went back to bed... bringing the fruit with us. The rule was the fruit had to stay in his bed, and after an hour of tossing and turning, interrupted with playing with his fruit in the dark (erm, that sounds a bit racy), he finally fell asleep with his head on me, his feet in his bed, and holding onto the puzzle board. He woke up just before 9am, though, which was mighty accommodating of him.

After a long, leisurly and rather delicious breakfast of pancakes and eggs, we headed out to pick up Elizabeth and Yulia and head for the state fair. It was nap time by the time we got to the fair, but the wee ones spurred each other on and had a great time riding the carousel ("eeee-hehehehe"), Liza and Yulia rode the mini rollercoaster and then we headed for the livestock barns, taking in the moos, baas (goats, not sheep), and the la la las (those would be pigs to those who aren't familiar with Sandra Boynton). Then the mules, rabbits, chickens, pigeons, ducks, more goats, more cows, some bona fide horses and rather wearily, headed for home after 3pm. Johnny managed to stay awake right up to bath time and was surprisingly pleasant, and fell asleep just before 7pm, which I suppose is an hour earlier than he has been lately.

First 100% clean-and-dry day

2008-09-06T19:02:00.000-07:00

He wore the same pair of undies all day long and they were dry at the end of the day. What a clever boy! We potty trained for 4 months to get to this point, completely baby-led and painless, starting at 14 months.

Still monster molars

2008-09-01T09:48:00.001-07:00

We have had Sheer Bloody Hell this past month with monster molars (top two) and one more incisor at the bottom, bringing the tooth count up to nine. They've all popped, and the two molars at the bottom should follow in the next month or so (still mad chewing going on), and then I sense that we're going to turn a corner with the sleeping.

He is running, jumping, two-word sentencing, tentatively telegraphic sentencing, clipping clips, sorting shapes, building towers, blah blah so surely by now there must be some respite in all this development that has plagued him so badly since 5 and a half months old!

We've been averaging two night time nappies lately, often just the one, usually waking up dry after several hours, and last night we had a trouble-free, dry-nappy 3:45am wee wee (by request). It's the first glimmer of dry nights in our future, and since wet nappies are what wakes him up often, that should help him get more hours of sleep in one chunk.

Tumbling ... and pre-ballet

2008-08-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

Johnny's dear love Elizabeth has her first tumbling and pre-ballet class tomorrow, and we're going to watch. I think that tumbling will be brilliant for Johnny and help him to focus some of his abundant energy. FIL has even agreed to pay.

The catch? DH is scared off by the "pre-ballet" moniker. I mean seriously, they're 18 months old! They're going to stand on one leg, turn around and bend their knees. DH would rather I drive 30 miles to a "pure" tumbling class.

They're always learning; even in the midst of a tantrum (or three)

2008-08-10T17:50:00.001-07:00

We're dealing with monster molars right now. That's right, tooth number seven is a molar. Combine monster molars with terrible twos (I have mentioned he's a precocious little twerp) and that spells monster menace.

Today in the grocery super-mega-mart he was being chauffeured around by his nearly 90-yr old Ouma while I whizzed around getting the groceries. When they caught me up, he didn't want to be in the push chair anymore. Fine, into the trolley, except when he started climbing out of the trolley, it was time to go back into the push chair, and that was a Big Problem. We had crawling away, we had unpacking saltine crackers, and then we had manhandling and a lot of yelling. (Though not by me.) I just uttered my mantra: "Sit down, Johnny..."

This happened three times: in the baking isle, at the check-out, and in the car. "Sit down, Johnny. Gentle touches with Mommy, Johnny." (As I retrieved my glasses off the floor.) "We don't hit Mommy, Johnny." I must say, I felt like a bit of an idiot, responding to beatings and yelling and an arched back with poise, grace, a firm but gentle restraint, and a calm explanation that we use gentle touches on people.

At bedtime I got the validation I needed for this seemingly idiotic tactic. As he lay there going over his new skills (including a solidifying of two-word sentences and I think a near launch of telegraphic sentences), he started chanting: " Sit -- down. Sit -- down. Sit -- down." And grinning from ear to ear. In the midst of the chaos and screaming and arched back, he learned something. I'm glad what he learned was not how to lose your temper.

Parenting according to personality traits

2008-08-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

I've been pondering lately over parenting from in front or behind. The black rhino has its calf walking behind, whereas the white rhino's calf is always in front, so nature does not prefer a particular approach. I think by default we've been parenting Johnny from behind: reverse-cycle breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-led weaning, casual potty training... it's all stuff we've fallen into because it fits him, and the path of least resistance fits us.

Taking the lead in parenting can lead to no end of power struggles, tearing your hair out and tears for all before bedtime, unless you know in advance how your child will respond to your direction. We have an old '80s child development book and it has an interesting table on enduring personality traits. I've already typed it all out once, over here. To sum up, Johnny is:

1. Activity level: High (e.g. always runs, never sits still)
2. Rhymicity: Irregular (e.g. wakes at different time every day, never eats the same amount)
3. Distractibility: Distractible (e.g. tantrums can be interrupted)
4. Approach/withdrawal: Positive (e.g. takes to new things)
5. Adaptability: Adaptive (e.g. handles changes in routine well)
6. Attention span and persistence: Long (e.g. will read the same book all the way to school)
7. Intensity of Reaction: Mild (e.g. doesn't lose it when someone steals his toys)
8. Threshold of responsiveness: High (e.g. doesn't care if he has a wet nappy)

Trying to Gina Ford Johnny onto a schedule would lead to perpetual misery, but knowing his personality traits has helped us to get him mostly potty trained by 18 months. We picked an approach that suited all of us, and he loves being seemingly in charge, shouting "Wee wee!" and running for the loo with Mommy doing his bidding.

Mommy!

2008-07-24T20:52:00.000-07:00

After an isolated event in the car on the way home last week that was not repeated so nobody believed me, he finally started calling me Mommy For Real this week. Today was we walked to the playground after school he was practicing.

"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes
"Mom-mee"
--yes

Other new words this week include "nose" (which lacks the s sound, but is distinct from "no" in that it does not end with a w, is not said quite so vehemently, and is accompanied by touching somebody's nose, not necessarily his own), "pool" (silent l, a favourite since christening his pool earlier this week while Daddy was in the shower), "bubbles," "other side" (while launching over me), "outside" (which sounds exactly the same), and "please" (which was hard to distinguish from "Lambert, which is who he initially was asking for).

Now that he has Really gotten to grips with saying goodbye, he sometimes forgets, only to yell "BUB-BYE" as loud as he can when the person is just out of sight.

The down side of toilet training

2008-07-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

Potty training is great - fewer nappies... except when he wakes up at 5:30 and needs to pee and his little body goes onto autopilot and heads for the loo. By the time I got there with him, he was fully awake and Really Didn't Want To Be There, so we headed back to the bed for snuggles and nana and by the time he was done with that, he was wide awake and asking to "wee wee." Thank God it was 6:15 by then, though.

I suppose the plus side to these early mornings is the two and a half hour morning nap.

Daddeeeeeeeee Daddeeeeeee

2008-07-06T17:52:00.000-07:00

Dad-da has turned into Daddy. Mommy is still da-da for the most part, but this Daddeeeeee is relentless. Kurt was sleeping in yesterday morning and Johnny wanted to give him something. He said Daddeeee about 20 times at the foot of the bed while Kurt was comatose before I went in and explained that Daddy was sleeping, which thankfully satisfied him. This morning when we woke up, he tried to get Kurt's attention again. It was 5:30am so I was pretending to be asleep hoping he'd snuggle back down and go back to sleep himself, but after the 10th Daddeeeee I couldn't help myself. "Daddy's sleeping, Johnny," to which Johnny replied "Wee wee?" and off we went to the toilet for the first of many times.

Johnny has been on a mad word acquisition drive this week, acquiring it seems two a day. This weekend he cracked "wee wee" and now it's his cover-all term for the toilet. I suppose it's my fault because I always say "Mommy needs to wee do you need to make a wee wee?" Today he has had a dodgy tummy and has said wee wee and tried to climb onto the toilet more times than I can count. In fact, he has only soiled two pairs of undies with wet farts, poor guy, and peed in two pull-ups, both our fault. The first was after his second nap when Daddy was in the shower and the second was when we got home from the zoo and I was too lazy to put him on the toilet. I haven't bought nappies in over a month now, and I'm loving it!

Johnny celebrated his second 4th of July by doing his first somersault on the grass. Kurt was inside, but our friend Jason saw it. Jason's girlfriend Mariah had a little girl, Sophia, last Monday. I'm sure Jason was amazed that his tiny baby will be running, yelling and doing somersaults in a little over a year. He did one for Daddy tonight on the bed.

All Grown Up

2008-06-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

Johnny moved up to the toddler classroom this week, having spent last week settling in. Being in the toddler class reunites him with his True Love, Elizabeth. He fell hard and fast for Elizabeth back in November when she joined his class, and once she started walking on her birthday, they were a veritable Bonny & Clyde making mischief together all day long. She went to New York for two weeks over Christmas (her parents are academics from Russia on H1-B visas so when her dad's boss moved to Brooklyn he had to go too) and when she got back, Johnny ran up to her and gave her a big hug and didn't let go until she started to cry.

Like his daddy, Johnny has a penchant for older women, so we were all very sad when Elizabeth moved up to the toddler classroom in January. We had a few weekend play dates over winter and went to visit in her classroom at the end of the day quite regularly. When Elizabeth wouldn't stop crying on photo day, they went and got Johnny who cried with her. When spring brought warmer weather we've had a half hour play date in the playground after school every day. It was no surprise, then, that Johnny's settling in in the toddler classroom was a doddle.

Since the move, reports are that Elizabeth has really started to shine and talk a lot more; we all knew that she could, but she just didn't have her bessie mate to talk to. Johnny is learning words from her thick and fast and spent the weekend saying "hi" and "bye" and "thank you" (which he says when he gives something to you because that's what Elizabeth says to him). Today at lunch time Elizabeth kept calling him "Johnny! Johnny!" because we were reading a book and he was off playing with the teacher.

Watching this friendship unfold between Johnny and Elizabeth makes me glad I'm not a stay at home mom. There are many days that working full-time sucks, but there's so much he has learned and experienced that never would've occurred to me that he could.

First Words

2008-06-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

Kurt read somewhere that first words are supposedly things that they have an emotional attachment to. Johnny's first word used in context was "Uh-oh." The next one was "shoe" and "toothpaste" wasn't far behind. "Toothpaste" (or "tissue" as it sounds) is as a result of us having morning pee and toothbrush time together on the toilet, so it could be that one has an emotional attachment.

"Dada" now means Dad, Inja, all dogs in fact, and just about everybody else, including Mom, unless I really press him to call me Mama, in which case he usually only relents if he Realy Truly wants me to pick him up. "Da" is of course a cover-all for "What's this?" and "Gimme that" and "Oh hey look over there."

His most commonly used word is "Nana" - banana - which he primarily uses when he wants to nurse, but which he now uses for all food. He shouted it at me yesterday when I deigned to drink off the juice from his tub of pineapples.

He uses other words, too, like "mmmmm" and "ooooh" (which his Granny taught him), but for the most part he is quite content with "da," "shoe," "uh-oh," "toothpaste" and "nana." It's amazing how far you can get with 5 words and a little latitude with their meaning. He knows and understands several dozen words, but shows no inclination to mimic them even though he's capable of making those sounds. I mean, why bother saying "nose" when "da" and pointing will do?

Cheap potty training britches

2008-06-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

I picked up some tightie whities for Johnny last week, which came with a little pocket up front formed by the overlaping material. It's the perfect size for a diaper doubler or some microfiber shoved inside for when we don't get to the toilet in time. It's not water tight, of course, so not appropriate for naps or night and it won't last all day, but it's great at keeping his clothes dry while he learns that peeing in your pants is not so comfy.

I have to say, I just love seeing his bum through the undies. It really puts into perspective how uncomfortable a paper-and-plastic nappy must be. It has put me off all the fancy cloth nappies with their PUL or the gDiapers' plastic liner, etc. Bring on breathable, I say!

Delving into potty training

2008-05-18T19:34:00.001-07:00

Now I know my child is a precocious little twerp but most kids his age can follow rudimentary instructions. If Johnny can ask to feed the dog, which he does morning and evening, then he can ask to go to the loo if he knows that option is available to him. It's not so much that I'm sick of changing nappies as I'd like to give my child some dignity as soon as possible.

A generation or two ago we were all in cloth nappies and our parents couldn't wait to get us into knickers. Then came the disposable generation and suddenly 2 years old is early for potty training. I actually read of someone asking if 20 months was too early to start but her dear daughter keeps removing shitty nappies and playing around in the poo. They tried taping the nappies on, but she manages to get them off anyway. Fancy that.

I've been familiarising Johnny with the toilet for the past week or two, but only managed to get a decent potty seat yesterday, so didn't start taking his pants off until this morning. I got some pull-ups and put them in the bathroom closet and will do all nappy changes in the bathroom, dropping poo into the toilet and letting him see it flush. The idea is that he's currently processing sequences well, so it's time to learn that the bathroom is where we go to pee and poo.

This evening I put him on the toilet and since the nappy I took off was full, I wasn't expecting anything and didn't worry that he was misaligned. His firehose was on top of the seat, and both of us were taken off guard when it started to spray. "Uh-oh" said Johnny; "Good job!" said I.

So there we are, officially potty training. There is one draw back, though, and that's that the toilet is now lit up like a Beverley Hills Christmas tree and is on the radar for exploration. He had both hands in the toilet this morning, which does make your stomach turn a little even if it is supposed to be more sanitary than the kitchen sink.

Nature versus Nurture

2008-05-15T19:08:00.001-07:00

The most fun part about being a parent is looking at the blank slate that is a product of mommy and daddy's DNA. You start out with "ooh poor lump got my ears with the one that sticks out more than the other." You move through "oh he's a precocious little twerp just like we were." But then around a year old you have this explosion of personality, and that's when it really gets interesting.

Our son is a sweet, compassionate little man with a sadistic sense of humour. It is not hard to tell which sides those traits come from. Similarly, the way he stacks his stacking toy, his snuggliness and his love of animals, is all clearly laid out in his DNA. Even his kamikaze nature adds up when you consider his grandfather's chosen profession.

Where it gets interesting is the stuff that's not so obviously in his DNA. Remember he's a blank slate so he's currently all nature. The stuff that can't be accounted for, recessive genes aside, is stuff that has been nurtured out of us.

Somehow Kurt and I have given life to a booty-shakin' chitter-chatter snuggle-snuggle love baby who gently strokes the head of his crying classmate, yells every time he runs, dances for seemingly no reason, smiles as he dusts himself off and picks himself up after landing on his bum yet again, and cleans up after himself if you give him a paper towel. Where did we go wrong?

The books all lie

2008-05-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

People usually go one of two ways in who they trust: books or people. I'm a book person, where book includes scientific journals and the internet.

As far as parenting resources go, the internet is pretty cool. You've got your WebMD and your kellymom for the book afficianados, but then there are forums and facebook groups for those who like their info from people. It's full of folks who say what they like and like what they say, whole continents of people itching for a fight, and dozens of cultures and counter-cultures to pick from. Your computer is your catelogue, letting you pick what you want and ignore the rest.

Books are a step up in authoritarianism though. Somebody edited and published the words and you pay for the privilege that the bullshit was filtered out for you leaving you with pure unadulterated truth. The problem is that bullshit is what sells books.

Have you ever noticed that pregnancy and parenting books are written for first-time parents? That's because when it's your second time on the rollercoaster you already know that the books are full of it. New parents don't want to hear that every baby is different and that what works best is your instinct; they want a set list of instructions for how to deal with the major issues: feeding, sleeping, staying alive and making your kid smarter.

Let's cut to the chase.

Feeding: The only "choice" as far as feeding goes is to breastfeed. If the boobie bar isn't working out for you, by all means stock up on formula. Just don't choose formula because you are making a conscious decision not to do the best you can for your baby and if that's your attitude then why are you having a baby at all?

Sleeping: Your baby will sleep for 11-15 hours a day, but not in useful stretches that allow you, say, to take a shower or wax your legs. You can let your baby fall asleep at the breast for as long as you like, but until you stop you will feel obligated to have your boobs in attendance for every nap and bedtime which is not necessarily the best thing for your sanity. Your baby will learn to go to sleep without your boob if someone else regularly does nap/bedtime but may still always want you to put your boob in their mouth because that's just the way you do bedtime.

Your baby will sleep the best between 2 and 6 months old; 6-15 months is a bloody nightmare between teething, crawling, separation anxiety, pulling up, babbling, walking and talking. Controlled crying and cry-it-out teach your baby that there's no point in crying because mummy won't come. If you're cool with that, you'll get longer blocks of sleep than those who aren't. Eventually your child will go to sleep on their own and sleep all night in their own bed. They'll do it about as soon as you really want them to.

Staying Alive: Your baby teaches you exactly how much you have to baby proof. We have to nail things down or lock them away, but there are children out there who can resist the magnetic tug of a purse or laptop. Seriously. When in doubt, call the pediatrician or 911. This is surprisingly the easy part!

Making Your Kid Smarter: I have no empiracle evidence for this yet, but the parts of the internet I choose not to ignore say a combination of breast milk, Omega3s that aren't polluted with heavy metals, and actively engaging with your child seem to be the way to go. Lots of eye contact, appreciative noises when your child babbles at you, and keeping a mix of toys that challenge and recently conquered challenges to boost self-confidence.

Growth Charts Schmoth Charts

2008-04-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

I think that the thing that gets the worst rap from the breastfeeding community is probably formula, but really it should be growth charts. Growth charts don't seem to bother formula feeders much and what it boils down to is the issue of control. It is very easy to see how much formula a baby drinks, and so if weight gain doesn't meet some lofty ideal, not getting enough milk is easily ruled out.

Boobs don't come with a built-in metering device, meaning that input is completely unmeasurable. In a culture that trusts information over instinct, breastfeeding parents are left to measure output for peace of mind. New parents, fathers in particular, don't do well with disposing of direct output, let alone weighing it, so instead we measure indirect output by popping our get on a scale and plotting their weight on a weight-for-age chart.

Consider Baby A: Born at 40 weeks on the dot, weighing a lovely average 7 lb, 100% formula fed on demand, milk input carefully logged, maintains a steady growth through the first six months and weighs in at 14 lb. Great job, big pat on the back. After 6 months, solids and water are introduced, baby starts to crawl, pull up, cruise, sleeps for ages at night and weight gain remains perfectly on track for 21 lb at 12 months. Ah what beautiful sense it all makes.

Now Consider Baby B: Born at 41.5 weeks weighing nearly 10 lb, 100% boobfed on demand, grows like a Russian body builder on steroids and doubles birth weight by a mere 4 months. His weight on the growth charts was always above the top line, but continues to diverge. By 6 months baby is crawling, pulling up, cruising and waking every 2 hours for a suck and getting in loads of delicious hind milk and not at all interested in solids in any shape or form. By 12 months baby is only 2.5 times birth weight, below the top line on the chart, still waking for milk every 3 hours at night and has only just showed an interest in solid food. None of it makes any sense at all.

Or does it? Breastfed babies often gain weight very well in the first 4-6 months. That is to say, they gain weight well compared to healthy formula fed babies, which thanks to lots and lots of data seems to have become some kind of yardstick. It makes a lot of sense that breastfed babies should gain more early because breastmilk is used almost 100% efficiently and their stomachs are very small. For the same milk volume, an infant digestive system is able to make more productive use of breastmilk.

After six months, tummy volumes have increased and solid food comes into play, so the playing field starts to level off. Breast and formula fed babies seem to end up in the same place by 12 months, but their paths to get there are often quite different.

I find it puzzling that people think they have control over their baby's weight. Traditional guidelines such as "double by six months, triple by twelve" are based on birth weight, which really is based on gestation period. In the final trimester, your little one gains about half a pound a week, so the difference between being born at term (37 weeks) and two weeks overdue (42 weeks) is a whopping 2.5 lb. By 6 months that's 5 lb and by 12 months that's 7.5 lb, which seems unlikely to me.

At some point a baby moves away from its growth pattern being determined by its birth weight and begins to follow the growth pattern that will see it end up in its adult size. It makes sense to me that this point is somewhere in the middle part of the first year, when the baby has gained enough weight for survival purposes. A baby may make a jump across several weight-for-age percentiles in either direction, depending on birth weight and adult size. This means that growth charts really are not a reliable means of measuring how well a baby is doing, which is not surprising considering early humans didn't have scales or statistics.

The most reliable indicator of whether your baby is thriving is whether your baby is happy, healthy, making progress towards milestones... colic, child care viruses aside, of course. Good news for those of us who like to measure things is that the WHO even has a gross motor milestones for age percentile chart!

Unhappy Beginnings

2008-04-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

If you ration yourself through the pregnancy books, not reading ahead, you get to Week 37 and they say "Congratulations, your baby is now full-term!" The end. So there you are, with 3 to 5 weeks left to kill and nothing new or interesting to learn about pregnancy except the very ominous "half a pound a week" that your baby will continue to gain.

At that point, if you're anything like me, it dawns upon you that any day now you will have a newborn baby thrust in your arms and you've no idea what to do with it. You rock back and forth, preparing to haul your big self up off the couch or bed and dash out to get What to Expect the First Year, and everything else you can find on the topic.

I don't remember when I decided to breastfeed. I suppose, like going to university, I always understood that I would. My mom had tried, but couldn't due to lack of milk, but two of my cousins did nurse. One didn't say much about it but did pump and freeze milk; the other battled early mastitis and continued pain, but stuck it out for 15 months.

I was left on my own to learn about teaspoon sized tummies, latches and let-downs. Between trips to the loo I learned science, like breastmilk is more easily digested. I learned economics, like supply and demand. I learned sociology, like nursing will help you keep your bond when you go back to work. I learned witchcraft, like immunoglobulins protect against disease and mothers who don't sterilize. I learned culinary skills, like how to skim to tide over for an hour and how to double cream to eek out an extra hour's sleep. I even learned religion, like supplementation and taking home the free formula samples were the road to hell. I don't know that all this knowledge gave me confidence, but it did give me perspective.

Despite not getting to hold Johnny until he was 3 hours old, missing that "2-hour window of alerness," things started out pretty well. He seemed to be getting loads of colostrum as production on the bottom end was five times the norm.

When he was a day old they came and took him for his circumcision, which is when things started going downhill. They say newborns don't really feel pain and that a few drops of sugar water and some topical anaesthetic is all they need. Bull. My little boy screamed if I held him close to nurse so when he went to sleep and stayed that way for 6 hours I just left him to it, poor guy.

The delivering doctor's words that welcomed our son into the world were "It's a toddler!" and by two days old, he was ready to eat like one. The lactation consultant came around as my nipples were ready to fall off and pointed out the tell-tale line showing he was latching onto nipple and not areola, but also that he was swallowing on the third suck so definitely getting something to eat. I persevered. Every hour I nursed him 15 minutes a side and then he spent the next half hour crying until I nursed him again.

It's ironic that the narcotics for the c-section pain did nothing at all for the nipples. I was ready to sue Medela for falsely advertising their lanolin as it did absolutely nothing either. The cherry on top was that my father-in-law had decided that the day before bringing the baby home was when he and my husband should install the kitchen cabinets, countertop and sink, so I was also all alone.

One of the books had forewarned that eventually there would be a point where both mother and baby would be crying, but when you read something like that you think "Not me! I'm prepared." I just don't think there is any preparation for the feeling that you're starving your newborn, even if the nurse and the pediatrician and the lactation consultant and every book on the planet say Do Not Supplement Your Baby, He Is Okay.

Thank God for the pediatric nurse who picked up the phone and deciphered through my sobs "please bring me something for my son to eat." I'm really grateful for the little bottles of formula she brought me and the half ounce that was all it took for Johnny and I to get some sleep, but I'm most grateful for her advice. "It's your baby, do what you think is right."

My milk eventually came in late on the 4th day. That wasn't the end of my woes, though. We never did get the latch right in the beginning and it was my husband who saved us there by discovering nipple shields, the $6 wonder that makes your baby latch on correctly and dulls the pain. It took 2 months for the initial few minutes of pain to cease and for me to brave giving up the nipple shields. Once I did, though, I was very pleased to see that Johnny had a perfect latch and finally lying down to nurse was simply heavenly.

Expressing Milk

2008-04-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

I was going to do these in some kind of chronological order, but a bit stuck on what to do next I'm jumping ahead to put together a how-to on expressing milk as it seems to be a common problem for many moms.

The real key to expressing milk with ease is ensuring that you get a let-down. There are two ways to do this; you can buy a very expensive electric pump that has two-stage pumping in order to simulate what your baby does to get a let-down, or you can use a manual pump. Cheap electric pumps are a waste of money. I bought the most expensive pump I could find (Medela PumpInStyle double electric with bells, whistles and a nifty backpack to carry them all in) and it cost less than 3 months' supply of formula. Well, the bags probably cost another 3 months' worth of formula but I could've used bottles and either way, over a year into the pumping game, I'm ahead.

Without sounding too much like a Medela sales rep, I have to say I really am a huge fan of my PumpInStyle. I have pumped a phenomenal volume of milk with it, and the motor is still going strong. I have donated 9 and a half gallons plus the shipment that was destroyed, and that's not counting what Johnny drank, which admittedly wasn't much for about 6 months. Some crude math tells me I've pumped somewhere on the order of 3,500 ounces or 25 gallons or 100 litres, rounding off.

Well it's lovely that my Medela, with it's let-down-inducing two-stage fanciness works great, but what about doing it with a manual pump? Well the trick is that you have to do what the PumpInStyle does. I suppose you have to do what the baby does, which is what the PumpInStyle tries to simulate, but it's a lot easier to learn from the PumpInStyle. I've heard that you can put your finger under your baby's chin to feel the pre-let-down rhythm, but I've tried that and it's not very easy to do.

I'm full of anecdotes and to spare you all the parenthetical hell I'll just abruptly start a new paragraph. I learned the other day that when doing CPR, it is now the accepted standard that, if someone is in cardiac arrest (not to be confused with respiratory arrest, where they stop breathing before keeling over), you no longer do mouth-to-mouth. The recommendation now is just to do chest compressions, as the blood moves so slowly when doing chest compressions that it's still pretty well saturated with oxygen and the stopping to do the breathing was doing more harm than good. Stick that in your back pocket for next time you're on the Waterloo-and-City Line, but keep this part in your pump bag: the tempo for chest compressions, and for stimulating a let-down, is 100 beats per minute, or the beat of the BeeGees' Staying Alive.

When it comes to pumping, brute force is not going to be any help at all but will almost certainly cause you pain. When you start out, hum along to Staying Alive and keep the beat with your pump handle. Within about 60 seconds you should have a let-down. If not, go a little faster. Those of you who have an mp3 player might want to make a 10-minute track to pump to, starting with a 60 second techno 100 or 120 bpm track and followed by some nice, relaxing 60 bpm rendition of Row, Row, Row Your Boat (I am partial to the Stephen Fry/Hugh Laurie version from Blackadder Goes Forth) for those of you who need to focus on your little one to keep the milk flowing.

Once you achieve let-down, the milk should start spraying. If it has been a while since you've pumped, you may find that you have to do very little. If I'm engorged I can pump once every 3-5 seconds initially. Once the fore milk is gone, you have to work a little harder (1 second long pumps) to get the hind milk out. A little breast compression with your free hand will prevent hand cramp in the pumping hand.

Osama Boob-laden

2008-04-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

I am a fundamentalist lactator. Don't get me wrong, I believe in God and Jesus and all of that salvation stuff, but I have only been to church once since arriving in the US and a religion is something you practice. It would seem that lactation is the closest I come.

Just like Osama, I prey on the lesser-educated, obfuscating and distorting the seminal text (that would be Gale Pryor's Nursing Mother, Working Mother) to bend them to my will. I do claim some moral higher-ground over Mr. bin Laden, though, and I don't mean because nursing is a just cause. At least I martyred my own boobs first.

Now hang on a minute, I'm very grateful for formula; I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the stuff. When I see parents formula-feeding their babies I don't feel smug superiority, I feel empathy, and a pang of regret that society has let another family down. I thought I had it bad in the beginning, but clearly that mother had it much worse or she'd still be nursing, if you see what I mean.

The only people who make me feel stabby are the ones who never even gave nursing a chance. Even if you only give it the good old college try while you are in hospital with your newborn, your baby gets most of the colostrum. One in five orphaned calves that don't get colostrum within 12 hours dies. The stuff is some kind of magic elixir.

Babies Prefer Boobs

2008-04-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing my son has taught me it's the fact that babies prefer boobs. Well, until they find a Cadbury Creme Egg in your handbag and are able to use their new teeth to break through the foil, but that's not really something a baby can do; it's more in the domain of the toddler. But as all rules have exceptions, I think it's safe to say that most toddlers also prefer boobs, and who can blame them? What's not to like about boobs?

Hello World

2008-04-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

44 hours later I hit the eject button and came out peeing.