You Know You're a Mom When...

You know you are a mom when you almost start doing a dance for joy when your son has a bowel movement after a bout of constipation. When he finally surmounted his problem, we started doing a joyous rendition of “You’re Mr. Poopy Pants…” to our mutual excitement. Yes, see how your intellectual prowess soars as a mother? No longer do you discuss the latest book you’re reading, world events, nor the most recent exhibit at the art museum. Now it is more likely to be the latest contents of your son’s diaper.

Poor Pumpkin has yet another ear infection. This one came about in a whole new manner. On Sunday afternoon, he suddenly spiked a high fever and had an episode of projectile vomiting (look, another lovely topic to add to your conversational repertoire!) We spoke to the doctor on call that afternoon and then made an appointment to see our normal pediatrician on Monday morning. He also seemed surprised to see another ear infection considering Pumpkin normally has a lingering bout of cold and congestion first prior to having ear problems. He had seemed to be doing better Sunday evening but then his fever spiked again later that night, despite the Tylenol later. In retrospect, I’m glad his fever did spike since I would have assumed it was just a normal viral episode otherwise. After a couple of days on a high powered antibiotic, the Pumpkin is on the mend although his appetite is still off a bit. However, let’s just say that his illness seems to have brought out a rather “willful” side of his personality! Giving him his antibiotic has resulted in several wrestling matches as he attempts to push away my arm with every attempt to give him his medicine, regardless of whether or not it is in a medicine dropper, a bottle mixed with a bit of formula or a bottle with just the medicine itself in there. Lovely, just another eight days with twice daily dosages to go…

Pumpkin is On the Move!

He’s crawling forward now! He had been inadvertently moving himself backwards for a while now but has finally figured out how to move forward. It seemed like it happened overnight. He had made one or two tentative forward motions previously, but all of a sudden he was able to crawl across an entire room. I’m very excited yet apprehensive as well. In his first hour of full crawling, I had to pull him away from our carbon monoxide detector twice as well as away from repeated forays towards the toilet. Needless to say, our house will be completely baby-proofed by the end of the weekend. I guess we’ll be breaking out the “NO” word now as well.

My husband is overjoyed that I am now receptive to buying a flat-panel TV since I now view it as a safety feature. Our current Sony Vega weighs hundreds of pounds and takes two men to move it so I just look at it as a catastrophe waiting to happen. However, he does not have me sold on actually paying for HD service. That battle continues…

He's Growing Up

I know there has been a long hiatus from the blog. When did holidays get so hectic? Pumpkin’s first Christmas was good, although he ended up getting sick. Since we were out of town, we took him to an urgent care where the doctor said he did not have another ear infection but she did put him on an antibiotic since he was developing a nasty cough. I still suspect he may have had a flare-up with his ears so I was glad that he was given the antibiotic. Pumpkin enjoyed the gifts (more so than the wrapping paper, which surprised me) and definitely enjoyed the attention from the legions of doting grandparents and aunts/uncles.

At the Pumpkin’s nine month appointment right before Christmas, our pediatrician told us he wanted to have him weaned off of baby foods and onto pure table foods, weaned off of the bottle and weaned off of formula by his twelve month appointment. Whoa, my world has been turned upside down!! He wants him drinking milk out of an open cup as well. The Pumpkin does pretty well out of an open cup when we hold it for him but even with us holding it, he ends up drenched by the end of the meal. I’ve gone to a triple bib technique- two cloth bibs and one vinyl bib but he still manages to become drenched around the neckline. How many outfit changes are we supposed to have during a day? Since Pumpkin is already in the twelve month sizes and is starting to outgrow some of those, we only have so many baby clothes that fit! I’m confused about the sizes since at his last appointment (which was right after a bout of a stomach virus) he was only in the 25th – 30th percentile in weight. The table food transition is also daunting, although we have been making all of his baby food and keeping it at more of a chopped vs. pureed consistency. A friend referred me to an excellent website: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/ which I think will give me some good ideas about how to proceed on the nutrition front.

We have been trying to give the Pumpkin as much organic and preservative/chemical-free food as possible. At least the table food transition should get all of us to eat healthier! A good blog I found for more organic baby products is: http://greenmomfinds.com/ We have not gone extreme on the green side of baby products but we’re trying to incorporate more and more as we read more about the hidden dangers in all of the products we use. We’ll see what type of reasonable balance we’re able to strike.

The Plague

Pumpkin has brought a plague upon our house. Yes, despite all of us receiving flu shots, we have all been brought down by some kind of intestinal virus. Poor Pumpkin experienced projectile vomiting for the first time last Sunday. He was fine right beforehand, seemed surprised right afterwards, and then was happy and playful again after I cleaned him (and myself) up. He is normally very good at self-regulating his food intake but had eaten more than usual right beforehand. Also, he had just tried prunes for the first time so I at first assumed that was the reason for the vomiting (eating prunes would probably make me sick to my stomach as well). However, he then had diarrhea the rest of the week. Luckily, he seemed to feel fine throughout all of this. I was worried about dehydration and was able to get him to drink a bit of Pedialyte. I spoke to a nurse at our pediatrician’s office who recommended Culturelle (a probiotic, $19 on sale, ugh…) since Pumpkin was finishing up a round of antibiotics and also trying the BRATY diet The BRATY diet is supposed to be intestinally-friendly and consists of Bananas, Rice cereal, Applesauce, Toast (dry) and Yogurt. Since Pumpkin has not eaten toast nor yogurt yet, he was confined to a rather boring diet of just the first three items. His problems finally appear to be tapering off today. I think finishing the antibiotic yesterday helped to get him back on track.

My husband came home from work home sick Thursday with the bug and I woke up at 3 AM on Friday morning with it as well. My mother and nephew were also afflicted that day. Unfortunately, my husband had to fly out of town Friday morning for the weekend so I was taking care of Pumpkin while sick- not a fun experience, especially since Pumpkin decided to only nap for half an hour that afternoon. Luckily, that meant that he was in bed by 5 PM that night and I followed shortly afterwards at 5:30. Today, we are all much improved.

On a more fun note, Pumpkin pulled himself up into a standing position for the first time in his crib today!! Have to finish baby-proofing VERY soon…

Christmas Overkill Already

I swore that this year, even though it is Pumpkin’s first Christmas, we would not go overboard. Since he’ll only be nine months when Christmas rolls around and will therefore, be much more interested in the wrapping paper than the actual presents, I wanted us to just buy a few presents for Pumpkin this year. Also, we will be traveling ten hours away by car for Christmas (yes, I know we are gluttons for punishment) and space will be at a premium in the back of the SUV. However, things have already started to spiral out of control. Each time I think we’re done shopping for Pumpkin, I see another cute toy or hear a friend talk about something that their baby loves and I feel the need to get one for Pumpkin as well. Our latest (and most expensive purchase to date) has been the Fisher-Price Laugh and Learn Learning Kitchen. Some of these toys have been recalled but the gentleman in the toy department in Walmart was kind enough to open the box for me while I was on the phone with him and double-check that it was not one of the recalled products. He then placed it on hold for me since they only had one left on the floor. Yes, I have actually even resorted to frantically buying the last available “hot” toy weeks before Christmas. I am determined, however, to make sure that Pumpkin does not learn to expect extravagant gifts or to always expect to have the hot toy of the season. We’ll see how that goes…

On a side note, I’m a sucker for holiday music so I recently purchased Barenaked Ladies: “Barenaked for the Holidays” because I love their collaboration with Sarah McLachlan on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings.” Sadly, the rest of the album was a big disappointment. I believe there may be one or two other decent songs on there but the rest make you almost wince with pain. So consider yourself warned…

Testing Toys for Chemicals

There is a great new website that just launched: http://www.healthytoys.org A consortium of environmental and health organizations have tested various baby and child toys for toxic chemicals. The spectrum of toys selected for testing seems pretty extensive, but you can also nominate a toy for testing. Each toy is rated for the level of lead, cadmium, chlorine/PVC, arsenic and mercury present; the site also lists the actual measurements of each substance found. The site also notes if other chemicals were found during testing. There seem to be a few technical details that need to be worked out on the site. For example, it appeared to be down for a short period of time today plus I noted at least one discrepancy where the toxicity level (high, medium or low) noted for a particular toy on a listing page was different from the toxicity listed on the detail page for that toy. However, this seems to be an excellent reference point for parents concerned about the toys with which their children are playing. The testing does not screen out all potential dangers. It is stated on the site that:

“HealthyToys.org is an initial screening of chemicals in toys for a handful of hazardous chemicals. There are a number of chemicals of concern that the XRF and HealthyToys.org cannot detect. For example, there has been much concern recently about bisphenol A, a component of polycarbonate plastic. The XRF is not able to detect bisphenol A, nor can it identify polycarbonate. In addition, the XRF cannot detect phthalates, a family of chemicals of concern, although we have used the presence of PVC plastic as a surrogate for the likely presence of phthalates.”

On a side note, I was happy to find that only one of Pumpkin’s toys was listed as having a medium rating (the Fisher-Price Portable Mobile: Ocean Wonders, which I suppose I will now toss out) and none of his toys earned a high rating. Of course, many of his toys were not tested but at least it is start. You can’t protect against everything but at least you can take action regarding the dangers of which you do know.

Pumpkin’s Christmas Picture

We took Pumpkin’s photo for our Christmas card today- that was an experience. He was actually very cooperative yet we had issues getting our digital camera to focus correctly. Also, since the camera actually takes the shot several seconds after you click the shudder and then takes multiple seconds to reset, we kept missing the ideal smile shots. All in all, it’s a good photo, however.
We tried to get a picture of Pumpkin with the dog, but of course Ms. Beagle was not cooperating. We were using a dog biscuit as a bribe and she pretty much came through and bowled poor Pumpkin over in order to try to get to the treat. At best, she pretty much ignores Pumpkin; at her worst, she deliberately avoids him (hopefully this is will stay her worst treatment of Pumpkin). It’s rather sad since Pumpkin’s entire face lights up every time he sees Ms. Beagle. Ms. Beagle is sweet but is definitely a very selfish, food-motivated dog. If my husband and I were to suddenly die and Ms. Beagle was trapped in the house with our corpses, I predict within twelve hours she would be noshing on our bodies. You would NOT want to be trapped in an Andes plane crash site with Ms. Beagle…