The Great Bumbo Escape

Today, our little acrobatic baby did what I previously thought impossible. She escaped from her Bumbo! A Bumbo is a great invention. It is a seat for babies that helps them sit up. Like Alcatraz, it is also mostly escape proof. But somehow Sasha made her great escape.
It was pretty scary. I missed most of it as I was in the shower, actually I was drying my hair. My husband was sitting at the computer and he had her in her bumbo seat. He put the bumbo up on the desk so that she could be within arm's reach. We would never put her in her bumbo seat on top of something without being right there next to her, even though we really didn't think she'd get out of it. But somehow she did manage to squirm out of the seat and fell of the desk! Luckily, my husband has reflexes of a ninja and caught her mid-air. As I walked out of the bathroom, I heard Sasha crying her upset cry and I saw her at an ackward angle in his arms. I didn't quite understand what had happened until my husband explained it.
The fall did seem to upset her, even though she was unhurt. When she sees the bumbo she yells at it as if to scold it. Little Virgo baby seems to hold a grudge. She's mad at it.
Probably unrelated, but she has been crabby off and on during the evening. She actually vomited once, which is unusual. I don't think she's ever done that before so I guess that's a milestone. I came home to feed her twice during the night, and oh my, that second time I came home I guess she had been crying unconsolably for 15 minutes straight before I got there. I fed her and she seemed to calm down until I had to leave to go back to work, then she started her fussing again. It was so hard for me to tear myself away and I felt bad for my husband as I know it must be frustrating to be stuck alone with a screaming baby. Sasha and I are so lucky to have him, as he is so patient and caring.
I wish I knew what was bothering her. Or if we can't figure it out, I hope it is short lived.

What's Wrong with Rachel?

"The 'Baby Signing Time' lady is starting to creep me out", my husband says to me, (referring to the woman on Sasha's 'Baby Signing Time' DVD). Sasha seems to like her, but I have to admit there's something I can't put my finger on that bothers me too. Maybe she's just too darn cheerful? My husband said he thinks it has something to do with her eyebrows. "I've never seen it, but I'm pretty sure she's what someone would look like if they combined Ecstacy/Zoloft/Cocaine", he says. Whatever it is, we can't watch too much of it at once. I do appreciate the educational benefits of the baby sign language video and I think it's otherwise a great video.

New Toys!

Yesterday, we decided that Sasha needed some 'interactive' toys, rather than just 'passive' toys. I suppose I could explain what I mean. Most of Sasha's toys, up until this point, are objects that don't really do anything. You know, dolls, stuffed animals, etc. They're curious and up until now they worked well for teaching our little dear how to reach for and grasp objects. But lately, Sasha's favorite toys haven't been toys at all. Like the remote control for the tv, our computer keyboards, cell phones. Stuff with BUTTONS! Stuff that does stuff. Cause and effect and all that good stuff.
So we took our little cutie to the local Babies R Us store to let her pick out some toys that would catch her interest. We tested lots of different toys out and got whatever she seemed to show interest in. Here's what she got:
A Fisher Price Laugh N Learn: Home Phone
Some Leapfrog Learn N Grove Maracas
some weird looking Baby Einstein Kaleidoskope
and a baby tap-a-tune piano
So yeah, all noisy toys. I don't mind really. Sasha seems to like them all and anything that makes her happy makes me happy (unless it's a bottle of bleach or something like that).
My husband had received some recommendations on Baby Einstein videos and got two of them. I really had my mind set against having my baby watch television, but I had already gotten two Baby Signing Time videos for her. I figured why not? Well, I guess Baby Einstein videos are like crack for babies. At least the few minutes I saw of the Baby Bach video before I left for work. It reminded me a lot of the iTunes visualizer that Sasha loves, except with real images.
Speaking of videos, I hadn't played the Baby Signing Time video for her in a few weeks, and really she's only seen it twice. I didn't expect a 6 month old to really get much out of a video, especially a sign language video. But I decided to play it for her today and I was impressed, mostly with my Sasha. When words that she was familiar with came up on the video, she went nuts! Especially words like Milk, Water, and All Done. She really seemed to recognize those words. When Milk was said and signed (which I do a lot for her when it's time to eat) she got very vocal and animated. I think she even expected to be fed.
Anyways, I hope she had a good day. I enjoyed the time I spent with her.

Spring Break

My 12 year old is on spring break this week, and she is visiting my parents for the whole week. The house is very quiet. And much cleaner. The 12 year old is a messy girl and it's easier to clean house when she isn't under foot and needing our attention and entertainment. So far, she says she's enjoying her time with her grandparents. I still have a lot of cleaning I want to accomplish before she gets back home this weekend.

Sasha baby has a bit of a cold today. She has a cough and a runny nose. I don't think I like the sound of her cough. She was also fussy for DH while I was at work. If he wasn't holding her or actively all-hands ackward positions balancing act kind of entertaining her she was upset. So she was much higher maintenance than usual.

My husband got a new computer and he has been fighting with it. It is so leet that no operating system can handle it. Apparently 4GB!!! of RAM plus the memory on the video card and stuff is too much for it.

How to save a life

Baby Sasha is my hero.
My 12 year old daughter took these pictures and when I saw them, it really looked like Sasha was performing cpr on her glowworm. So I put the images together with some clever text narration and I think it looks adorable.
Sasha LOVES her glowworm. She was standing there on the couch with me. I was holding her hands and she saw the glowworm. She started squirming and fell over. Somehow, even though she can't crawl yet, she managed to wiggle her way over to glowworm and greeted it with a big face-sucking kiss. It was so adorable. I sat Sasha up and she still kept trying to kiss it's face. Glowworm's face lights up and it plays music when you squeeze it, and Sasha smiles whenever that happens.
Anyways, I'm amused.

OHMYGOD! Diaper :(

Friday, March 23rd, 2007, 1:38 am

Okay, I'm sure some other baby has probably done worse, but this was the worst I've ever seen Sasha create.

Today, I changed the first diaper on Sasha that ever made me gag, retch, and want to vomit. It was awful. It went all up her back and up her front too! She filled her diaper so full that it just couldn't contain it all. And the consistancy of it *shudder*, well it was runny and slimy. Okay too much detail but at least it didn't smell. It's been 12 years since I've changed a diaper that bad. My 12yo daughter was formula fed and although her diapers weren't runny they always smelled terrible. This is the first diaper Sasha has had that could rival anything my first daughter produced, lol!

Anyways, Sasha didn't want to sleep during the day much. She let me and my husband sleep for about 4 hours this morning. Then my husband let me sleep for about 4 more hours while he watched Sasha. He was anxiously awaiting delivery of the new computer parts he ordered online and the UPS website showed his package was out for delivery so he was nearly pacing around the apartment waiting for it. He was like a child on Christmas waiting to open presents. Anyways, it turned out that my husband didn't really get much sleep at all today. This means I'll probably not get much sleep tomorrow as he'll probably be too tired to let me sleep after I get off work.

THAR SHE BLOWS!

Thursday, March 22nd, 2007, 3:55 am

Hehe, she finally filled her diaper up after about 4 days. Apparently it was impressive. I was at work when it happened so my husband was on diaper duty. Then again, he's almost always on diaper duty. Honestly, he does more diapers than I do. He's a wonderful father.

Sasha has been really groggy since her 6month DTP immunization. The last time she got the DTP shot she was like this too. Unfortunately it appears that she may be mixing her day and night up. For a night shift family like ours, that means she is starting to stay awake during the day and is sleeping at night which also means that sleep is becoming difficult for me. I have to try to schedule naps with my husband.

We cosleep out of necessity. We only have a two bedroom apartment and that is not likely to change for at least another year. My 12yo does NOT want to share a room with a baby so that puts Sasha in with us. I didn't even bother to buy her a crib. Anyways, the point of this tangent is that today, Sasha was awake instead of sleeping with me so I had to divide sleeping shifts with my husband. When I took my turn to sleep, it was the first time in a long time that I haven't slept with a baby by my side. I feel bad admitting this, but it felt kind of good to sprawl out and sleep without having to worry about a baby next to me. I could sleep on my back! I could toss and turn. I could completely zonk out without having to keep a small part of me alert like I do when cosleeping. It was strangely refreshing, sort of like a vacation. Last time Sasha got her sleeping schedule mixed up like this, I ended up missing cosleeping and I know that will be the case this time too. But for now I'm enjoying a little more sleep freedom. My husband is good at letting me get my sleep so I'm not overtired at work at night.

6 month check up

Pictured above, Sasha litters the ground with her bears. It's not as bad as it looks.
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007, 3:39 am

So today was the big 6-month check-up with Sasha's pediatrician. First let me say I love both of her pediatricians. She has two, really. Well the office we go to has two and sometimes she sees one, sometimes the other. Both are great.

Today we saw Dr R, a female doctor. There is something special about her. She is the only person in that office that can walk into the exam room that Sasha doesn't start screaming at immediately on sight. Sasha has a pretty good case of stranger anxiety that came on during her 5 month check-up. Personally I think she remembers that these are the people that give her those nasty shots in the leg.

So the nurse walked us into an exam room and Sasha shot her a few glares along the way. It's always the same nurse every visit and Sasha knows that nurse means to give her shots. The nurse had us strip Sasha down for her height and weight checks and left the room for us to do so. We finished quickly and had a few minutes to spare. Sasha filled that time by delightedly playing with the window blinds. The moment the nurse walked into the door to start the measurements, Sasha started her yelling.

She weighs 15lbs8oz, and is 27 inches long. She is at 50 percentile for weight and 90 percentile for height. DH and I were highly amused by this. She's our little string bean just like her Daddy. I think we both were hoping she inherited his height. Somehow these measurements seemed to affirm to us that yes, she would be tall like her daddy, not short like her mother.

The nurse left the room and we tried to comfort Sasha. She wouldn't stop crying but stared longingly at the blinds. I let her start playing with the window blinds again and she cheered right back up. When the doctor entered the room, Sasha couldn't be bothered to stop playing with the blinds. She just stared suspiciously at Dr R and returned to her playing. As I said earlier, it is amazing that she doesn't cry at Dr R...she sure screams at the other doctor in the office. But this time, I could actually hold a conversation with the ped, which was nice. Sasha only started her crying after Dr R started her intrusive examinations like looking in her ear, poking on her belly, checking her hip joints and arms and spine. All good.

Dr R said we can start solids. She said to start with cereals for a week, then go on to vegetables and cereal for the second week. On the third week she said to start fruits and cereals. So like, on the second week she means that two meals a day, one meal a veggie and one meal a cereal. On the third week try two or three meals a day of cereals and fruits. I mentioned that I was making my own baby food and she was okay with that.

Then it was time for the shot...only one this time! Sasha cried the moment the nurse came in the room to give it to her. My heart didn't sink quite as bad at having to hold her leg for the shot. Sasha still shot me a whithering "et tu, brute?" look that made me feel like I was the meanest, most horrible mother in the world. Somehow I didn't take it as hard as the previous months. The nurse left and I calmed Sasha down by nursing her until she bit me. I deserved that. It reminded me that I didn't ask the ped about that darned biting problem but I didn't feel like chasing her down and I felt like the worst was over anyways.

I can't believe 6 months have passed by already. We don't have to go to the ped until 9 months now.

Mmmmmmm Avocado

Wednesday, March 21st, 2007, 5:07 am

Add sweet potato and avocado to the list of foods Sasha likes!

The only problem I see now is she hasn't had a bowel movement in like 3 days. This is strange. Up until now she's had multiple dirty poopy diapers a day. I'm trying to keep DH from panicking. I do understand that the change in her diet would cause this. I'm just sort of morbidly curious how bad of a diaper it will be when she finally blows...

Squash is a hit

Monday, March 19th, 2007, 12:53 am

Well, after the banana disaster, I was about to give it up. I was starting to doubt whether Sasha was ready for solids or not....maybe she just wasn't ready?

But I decided to give another food a try. My main hesitation at trying another food was I thought it wasn't a good idea to try another food so close to trying her first food...what if she showed an allergy? I wouldn't know which food caused the allergy.

Well, squash was Sasha's second food. And she LOVED it. Squash (or SKWAAASH as we fondly call it) was the very first baby food I made when I started getting foods ready a month ago. I steamed the squash in my rice cooker/steamer and I was so surprised at how smooth it pureed...and the color was such a pretty orange-yellow. The frozen baby food squares of it looked so pretty in my freezer.

I was surprised at how quickly Sasha and I learned to communicate with each other while feeding her. I've noticed she likes to alternate bites of food with a sip from her sippy cup. Even though I try to use sign language with her, I've noticed she bangs her right fist on her high chair table when she wants a sip of milk from her sippy cup. She loves to sing whenever she has food in her mouth and she shakes her head back and forth with her mouth open when she really wants another bite of squash. I was determined to NEVER force food into her mouth unless she opens her mouth willingly for it. This policy makes feeding her take forever, but I think it will be good for us in the long run. I'm hoping to make feeding time a happy and stress-free experience for both of us without any power struggles.

I remember being so frustrated feeding my first child and hope to avoid the mistakes I made. It's so strange to me. My first child was about figuring out how to take care of her. Now I find my second child is about correcting the mistakes I made with my first. Many of the mistakes I made with my first dd centered around food and feeding time. Feeding was frustrating, like I said. Also, I fed my first child too much, too often, and too soon. She has always had an 'almost weight problem'...very chubby just barely bordering on overweight and I know that my early feeding mistakes with her were to blame.

First food- Bananas did not work

15March07 First Food- Bananas did not work

Either I did it wrong, or Sasha just isn't ready for solids yet. Sasha had her first bite of smooshed banana for her 6 month 'birthday'. I thought she'd be ready to eat by now. She had seemed so interested in foods when she watched us eat and seemed to have all the signs of readiness.

I took a very ripe banana and smushed it as best as I could but it still had tiny little chunks in it that I couldn't get to go away. I thinned it a little with breast milk. Then my husband tried to feed it to Sasha. She made the strangest expression, like "what on earth are you feeding me!" with nearly every bite. She seemed to have difficulty moving the food in her mouth and swallowing it. She kept choking on nearly every bite. We didn't give her spoonfuls, just tiny little amounts that barely coated the spoon. The choking was very scary!

Even up to an hour later, Sasha would randomly start choking. I think she had 'chipmunked' some of the banana smush in her mouth and then choked on it again later so I had to keep such a close eye on her.

I also gave her a sippy cup with some breast milk in it to drink with her banana and she did great with that. She's really good at drinking from cups. She kept demanding to drink but she didn't want much to do with the food.

I guess I didn't quite expect this. I thought she would gobble her food up with no trouble and I'm mildly disappointed.

Biting update

Thought I'd give an update. It's been two more days and suddenly like a miracle, the biting ended!

I am so happy I could cry. I didn't know how much I'd miss nursing or how lucky I was to have such a problem-free nursing relationship with my baby until this problem occured. I don't know what solved it. Perhaps it was teething. Or maybe it was all the yelps of pain that scared her and I was lucky she didn't find it funny? I did eventually get used to the biting enough to do the 'smother her with my breast' trick so perhaps that helped. I had two days of almost all pumping and bottle feeding and I think she missed the nursing too as she kept staring at my chest and trying to move my shirt, lol.

So I guess for anyone who has this biting problem, I can totally sympathise. It seems to go away on its own and hopefully it will stay away...at least until those top teeth come in :P

The biting continues

Yesterday, Sasha bit me every single nursing session. Eventually I just gave up and started pumping. She had mostly the bottle. She doesn't bite me when she is sleepy so at least those nursing sessions that put her to sleep are still safe.

So for now at least she's still getting the benefits of nursing except I have to pump. It's a real pain but I really don't want to buy formula after all the expense I've invested in nursing (pumps, nursing clothes, nursing bras, etc, the price of which added up and I justified buying by all the money I'd save by bfing).

The decline of my nursing relationship

Sasha is biting me when nursing...and I mean hard. She clamps down with that sharp new tooth of hers and just doesn't let go, like a vice grip. She has drawn blood a few times. I have a sore. I'm afraid she's going to take off my nipple.

The moment she bites me, I lose my mind. Everything I ever planned to do when she bites is out the window. It was so easy to say "just smush her face into your breast when she bites", or "just take her off and say no". But when she bites and won't let go, I am incapable of logical or conscious thought when she bites, just involuntary self-protective reaction. I end up screaming in pain and wrestling with her for my boob back, and she gets understandably scared and starts crying. The only control I have, if I am braced for it, is to keep from screaming or hurting her.

I am watching our nursing relationship decline and I am so sad I am near tears. It used to be so happy and relaxing for both of us. Now I am dreading every nursing session and I think she is starting to also. I really wanted to make it to 1 year. Maybe 6 months isn't so bad.

I am thinking of maybe just pumping only.

I've already read a bunch of advice, and it's no help when I am in the moment she bites and can barely control my screams. There really doesn't seem to be anything I can do other than endure the bites and that is just causing both me and my daughter to be tense and scared during nursing sessions. I don't know how on earth the human race made it this far; this nursing stuff is hard.

I'm just sad. And scared. I want my old toothless baby back but that's not possible. I wish she would just stop on her own so we could go back to the way we were.

One recovery down

Princess Sasha at 6 weeks old.

Today I came home to a still-sick baby and a tired husband. Sasha had not slept much during the night, husband reported. To me, that meant she would sleep well with me during the daytime. So I snuggled my Sasha and I nursed her as we drifted off to sleep in the bedroom.
I woke up and felt like I was being watched. Sasha was beaming me a huge smile. I'm not sure how long she was awake before I woke up, and I couldn't help but wonder how long she was flashing that big smile at me. She shook in delight when she saw that I was awake and looking at her. She had my full attention and I realized Hey, she doesn't seem very sick anymore. We played together for a little while until I finally decided to get her up and change her diaper. I took her temperature and it was back to normal! 98.4F. A miraculous 'overnight' recovery...I say overnight since we sleep during the day and are awake at night so the daytime is like our night. Yeah it's all backwards.
My 12 year old daughter was already home from school. She decided to practice her bass by giving us all a concert. Sasha was highly amused and watched her big sister intently.
The only problem today was the fact that my dear husband didn't get much sleep and he is definitely coming down with the flu. He didn't seem very comfortable at all and I felt bad for him, especially since he would not get any time off. I had to work tonight and Sasha is a strict boss. She doesn't cut him any slack even if he is sick or tired.
At work, I chatted with my husband. It was a quiet night. He said that Sasha was a sweetie so at least the night was bearable. She is back to her old self.
I am glad to have my princess back.

Sick Baby and one long day

Yesterday was quite eventful, to say the least. I came home from work at 6am and noticed my darling 6-month old daughter Sasha was warm. My dear husband had been telling me all night that she was especially crabby, and wouldn't sleep, therefore I had a tired crabby baby and husband on my hands. As I snuggled up to Sasha, I realized she seemed especially warm...warmer than usual. I took her axial temperature and it was elevated, about 100F degrees. DH and I discussed whether to take her to the doctor or not. I was supposed to have a training class/meeting at work from noon until 4pm, plus I had to work at night. We decided that we didn't think the 100F temperature warranted a doctor visit quite yet. Instead we would observe her.
I nursed her to sleep and we took our nap. I woke up about 2 hours later and Sasha was burning up. I took her temperature and it had elevated to 101.1F. She seemed to be quite unhappy so I decided to call her doctor's office. They asked me if I had given her baby tylenol yet. Frankly, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind. It's been so long since I've taken care of a sick baby.. At least 12 years. Sasha hadn't been sick ever so I just wasn't thinking. But now that they brought up the idea of tylenol, it sounded good to me, except when was I going to find the time to go to the drugstore to buy some? They said they would be able to see Sasha at 10:45am so we agreed to an appointment with the doctor at that time. That gave us 1.5 hours to snuggle.
I took my poor sick baby to the doctor's office and the moment Sasha saw the nurse she started wailing and screaming. She's had a lot of stranger anxiety lately. I thought she was too young for it but I guess she thought otherwise. The same thing happened with her 5 month doctor visit. She cried at the sight of the nurse and doctor at that too. So again, this visit was conducted over the cries and wails of an upset baby Sasha.
The doctor checked her out and concluded it was just the flu, and why don't I give her some baby tylenol?
I considered stopping at the drug store to buy some baby tylenol on the way home, but the thought of taking Sasha into and out of her car seat one more time just didn't sound like a good idea. Instead I went home, nursed Sasha, and had barely enough time to get myself ready and out the door for my work meeting.
The class let me out at 2pm instead of 4pm, so I was able to get the baby's medicine on the way home from work.
I got about 5 more hours of sleep in before I had to report to work that night. DH noted that he wasn't feeling well and started showing signs of getting the flu as well. Cassie was the first one to get it and I was just recovered with my round of it. Oh well, looks like more fun in store for us in the near future as baby and dh fight it.

First Post!

Here it is: First Post!
There, got that out of my system.
I think an introduction is in order. Sasha is my second daughter and this blog is an effort to chronicle her growth and mine. She will be six months old next week, as she was born on September 14th.
I'll do flashbacks from the past 6 months when I have the time otherwise I'll just hit the ground running.