equinox mamas & babes sept/oct 2003 august thread

[plum]

wow, what a busy bunch of mamas! can you believe it's august??? the girlie is going to be one year old next month!

[plum]

oh my gosh! i forgot! she's been so cranky the past two days. yesterday she just kept shrieking and i was getting so irritated and worn out. finally, i thought 'hey, maybe it's her teeth' so i checked. it was! i'm in shock: she's getting next teeth! she has two pointy things sticking out of her gums on the bottom, one on each side of the bottom four. one broke through today. this is wearing me out and i feel so bad for her. her sleeping pattern is fine (she even fell asleep early tonight) but all day she's so crabby.

i made myself a nursing necklace out of a few heavy beads and one of those little chains dogtags come on. if i wear it when she nurses, though, she tries to unlatch and bite it. instead, i give it to her and she puts it on herself.

she's started to turn into a gymnast when she nurses, too. it can be annoying. she'll latch on, nurse for a few minutes, then unlatch and climb on me then latch and unlatch in different positions. she'll tip upside down, hang in my lap, stick out her legs. if i try to stop her, she freaks out. sometimes i'll let her since she does seem hungry but other times, i just pull my shirt back down.

[beatgirl]

I have a little gymnast too! It is kind of frustrating when I am really tired...but we are still nursing and I am proud because this is 3 months longer than my other 2 nursed

Teeth...we already have 5 and now it seems that #6 is on its way...cranky baby only wants mama. Its nice that I can comfort her but it would be nice to be able to go to the bathroom without her freaking out...this too will pass.

Thats cute about the necklace. I have a ring with a carnelian stone in it and she will stare at it and play with it while shes nursing...its pretty cute.

I cant believe she is almost a year old! We are definitely entering into a new era!

[plum]

wow, penelope. your post really struck a chord with me and it makes me want to cry (it doesn't help that dh is playing guitar along with johnny cash's version of 'hurt').

sometimes i do feel like i suck. i mean, my parents (and i do love and adore them) were really harsh with us growing up. i saw that a normal reaction to something is to lash out, yell, hit, etc. dh wasn't ever spanked (well, he was on occasion) and so he doesn't feel that way. it wasn't until she was born that i began to realize that spanking doesn't help. it didn't help me, other than to learn that if you are bigger, you can hurt others. i don't want to be like that!

it's only been recently where this has become an issue with me. she's slapped me a number of times and i've had to bite my lip to keep from slapping her back. it's just a reaction for me, hurt who hurts you, and i so do not want to go there with her. i haven't and i hope i never do. if i do, i'm more than prepared to explain to her how wrong i am and how it isn't acceptable for anyone to hurt her. it sucks and i feel like such an awful mom sometimes. i'm learning and i'm breaking this cycle!

and i do love having a headstrong, determined child. i don't want her to be shy or to be afraid or timid the way i was when i grew up. i love how you phrased that!

anyway, she went to bed easily. she woke up crying so we put her nighttime diaper on and she nursed right back to sleep.

[mamaley]

Originally Posted by plum

wow, what a busy bunch of mamas! can you believe it's august??? the girlie is going to be one year old next month!

WOW! Where did the time go?! Seriously. Although we have until October.

[cobluegirl]

What great posts MamaP....now the big question....I am in the middle of trying to break the cycle with the 2 older kids..and dh isn't on board...and it is so hard....I spank...I don't want too and I know it doesn't teach anything....but it is so hard to stop...along with the yelling. T is almost 5 and I just about think I have probably ruined him for life already....

Yeah I have a gymnast while nursing too..I am so glad she isn't the only one. She also started hitting her head with her hand...as well as smacking anyone who gets close....she thinks it is funny. She bit me today (the first time with teeth)..oh.that was hard..hehe..I told her no that hurt and she laughed at me.

[plum]

re:hitting herself: scout does that too. is that bad? we let her play with old records and i've noticed she will bonk herself on the head with it, over and over. she does it with books sometimes, too. if we call her name, she'll stop and look at us and smile. then she starts doing it again later.

[CTMOMOF2]

Chloe just pushed some button that made me lose my entire long post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally Posted by mamapenelope

In the long run, a child who grows up being yelled at, or spanked, or left in a closet to "consider her sins" or whatnot, learns that s/he is not worth listening to, not worth understanding, not worth time and effort and patience. She does not learn true empathy for others because her own little soul is bruised inside from being belittled or shamed or physically harmed.

MamaP you have been missed the past 2 weeks!!! Your advice and comments such as the one above are soooo inspiring and sooo true!! I learn more from your posts than i do from reading many books!! I'm working on changing my behavior too, it is sooo difficult, but i personally think that since i've been coming to the boards here that i probably stop and think about 40% of the time, whereas before i would always RE-act and fly off the handle immediately.

I'm not going to re-type the entire post i had... soooo tired, up most of the night!!

[cllovato]

Hi MamaP- good to see you're back!
You've really got some good GD advice. My DH and I both know we get too frustrated and angry with our DS (he's almost 8 and has WAY TOO MUCH energy!) I'm a bad yeller and he's a spanker, though he has way more patience than I do. We both know that neither are working and we try so many other things as well, but they're not working either. We are at a loss and unfortunately I never get the time to try to read any GD books. Any ideas what we might try to get hime to start listening and doing what we tell him at least after the first 2 times instead of 10 times and then threatening!!!

I grew up with just my mom and boy was that tough. She still hates (I really mean that she hates) her own mom for her having a hard life growing up. She just can't let the past go and it really eats her up. I love my mom, but the way she treats people really bothers me. I see myself saying and doing so many things that hurt me so much when I was growing up and it just makes me feel horrible. Some of the things she will say about me (to me) and my SIL are just terrible. The things no mother should ever say about her children. I just don't want to be that way.

I have really done a lot to keep myself in check about the spanking, it's the yelling that I really have trouble with. I guess you just keep trying!!!!

Sorry- what a bummer post!!!
In other news- Marisol just loves the dirt!!! We are trying to plant grass in our front yard and so we have just dirt now (the grass is starting to come up- yeah!!!) So I went outside to start the water and I put her down on the sidewalk. Not two seconds later she was crawling around in the dirt, eating it with sticks and trying to eat rocks!!! What a nut-

Sleeping- what is that? Marisol only slept 8 hours total night before last (usually it's more like 10) then only took one 2.5 hour nap during the whole day yesterday. She fell asleep at 9:15, but only slept for about 20 minutes. Then she was up until almost 1:00. She just doesn't want to go to bed lately! We only have one tooth and I don't see any more coming in, so I just don't know what it is!
Well- little girl is crying so time to go- have a good day everyone!!

[Eman'smom]

Proof that ds (age 3) has never been spanked: not exactly light hearted but it made me fell I'm doing something right on occation. Ds was making me crazy nothing I was doing was working in a moment of frustration I said "Do you need me to hit you?" ( I wouldn't have but I thought I'd scare him the way I was scared as a child). You know what he said " Yes mommy hit me". He didn't even know what it meant to be hit, so he wanted me to do it to him.

It's hard to break the cycle and there are still times that I wonder about gentle disipline, but looking back I'm very glad about the choices we've made.


Dd has decided she no longer wants adult food (fine) but she wants me to be a 24 hour snack bar. Ds nursed for over 2 years and I'm fine with that but I really don't like being sucked on 24/7. That and I'd like some sleep, she is also a gymnastics nurser, and searches out my skin to pinch and claw when she is nursing. Clothes necklaces whatever doesn't matter, she just wants skin.

[plum]

these new teeth are taking forever . she nursed all night long, which is something she never does. then, when we finally got up, i rolled her over and she threw up on me. it was weird, she hasn't spit up like that in a looonnng time :LOL.

[guest9969]

Originally Posted by Eman'smom

That and I'd like some sleep, she is also a gymnastics nurser, and searches out my skin to pinch and claw when she is nursing. Clothes necklaces whatever doesn't matter, she just wants skin.

Griffin does that too and I've been trying really hard to get him not to but nothing is working... the first time he did it I yelped, "Ouch!" and he thought it was very, very funny. : Now, I try not to react but take his hand and put it on my shirt or his lovey. He goes right back for skin. If you find something that works, let me know!!!

Also, does anyone else's baby still not have any teeth? We have been able to see the bottom 2 under the gums since he was 4 months old but they show no signs of coming through. Dh didn't get any teeth until almost 14 months so we may have a while before G gets any.

[Eman'smom]

An "ouch" does no good, she just cries then goes back to doing it. I move her hand, she just moves it back I'm at a loss. But man does it hurt.

[Eman'smom]

I know Penolope, but I was thinking in reverse instead of a suit of armor for me, I was thinking a baby straight jacket LOL


Well off to vaccum the leaves off the living room floor : It's my fault for allowing branchs to come through the house on the way to the car.

[ShellyK]

Penelope, great to have you back! Your GD posts are especially eloquent and true. I am lucky - I haven't had any temptation yet to hit or yell at DD, but there is plenty of time for that. My father beat us when we were kids. Every Sunday after church we were pretty much guaranteed a bare-bottomed session with the belt for not sitting still enough during the service. I will Never, EVER use spanking with my daughter. I'm also lucky that DH seems to have the same aproach as me - he's naturally good at redirecting.

Julie took her first steps the other night. Just a couple, and she's not doing it regularly yet, but it was very exciting. Joe managed to get it on video tape. Yay!

Hey, does anyone else's baby try to drink the bathwater? Julie loves grabbing the cup I use to pour water over her head, she loves sucking on the wash rag, she will even try to stick her face in the water all for the sake of drinking it. Blech! She got so mad at me tonight because I wouldn't let her have the soapy washrag to suck on.

We also had a cat-puke incident in our house this last week. So Gross! I'm not sure if she actually ate any, but I know she had some in her hand.

I just finished negotiating a power-play with my MIL. She had her idea of what Julie's birthday party would be like, I have mine. Trouble is, MIL is the type that she won't tell me what she wants till the last minute, then springs it on me and gets petulant if it doesn't happen the way she wants. This time, we pinned her down early on, and were able to make plans that will accomodate all needs. We'll have a family-only dinner party the week before that will include the korean first-birthday traditions; then a friends get together on the actual day with the american cake and ice cream. Hopefully everyone will be happy, but I know there's another shoe yet to drop in this deal.

Oh! I was going to bring up mealtimes - should we have a messiest baby contest? I think Julie would win. I was feeding her a mixture of kale and millet during lunch, and she was eating a plum on her own. I always try to give her some finger food so she will let me hold the spoon, and she loves attacking a whole piece of fruit. The plum ended up in her lap all soggy/juicy, then she took over the spoon feeding and ended up with kale porridge in her hair, up her arms, in her lap, and of course all over her face. I took a picture it was so cute.

http://www.shellykang.com/040802MessyKale0002.jpg

[FreeRangeMama]

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Just want to subscribe

[plum]

penelope, i don't think you ran anyone off. it's a hard thing to talk about but you gave excellent advice and you made me feel a lot better .

[cobluegirl]

MAMAP Na didn't run me off. I just didn't get any emails again...sigh...thought I better check before I went to bed. I am so tired. Dh comes home tomorrow!!! YEAH!! Unfortunately the kids know too and will be a pain in the rear till he gets here which will be after bedtime..but I don't think I will put them down. They were bad today...not sure what I am going to do with them tomrrow to keep them occupied.

Josie is starting to stand by herself a little bit more and more. It is so cute and my 3yo starts to holler each time she thinks it is great!

Hey does anyone know anything about computers?? Dh turn his on this evening to check email and then went to take a shower and when he came back it was all funky with an message about and error and rebooting so he did and it now says operation system not found....he can't get it to do anything?? Any ideas?

[KathinJapan]

Lots to write, subscribing for now.
Kathryn and Maya 10/28

[ShellyK]

cobluegirl, make sure there are no disks in the other drives of the computer - sometimes having a floppy in there confuses things. Otherwise, it sounds like the hard drive has gone bad. It may be that the boot sector is corrupt, which might be fixable by simply re-imaging the hard drive (in which case you'd lose all the data). It might be a truly dead hard drive, though. If it's a windows machine, try booting it in Safe mode - turn the computer off and then as it's rebooting hit the F8 key (just keep hitting it repeatedly until you get the screen that asks you whether you want safe mode). This is a very limited portion of Windows OS, enough to allow you to back up your data and maybe run checkdisk which could possibly solve your problem too. If he gets it running, first order of business is backing up data!

I actually have a reminder in my Outlook program to back up everything once a month. I've had enough computers go kaplooey that I've learned my lesson. I hope this helps a bit. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.



Okay, favorite foods - well, whole pieces of fruit. Plums and pears are the main ones she's had. She gobbles down most fruit put in front of her - blueberries are one of the current hot ones. She will also gladly eat the cereal I make for her.

I have another question to go along with Penelope's. What does a typical day of food look like for your babe? I'll start. Julie's allergic to wheat, so we don't do bread, but I'm really going to get around to baking some wheat free bread. Really. Soon.

Breakfast: About 2 tbs of either millet or quinoa cereal - I used to heat up more, but that's about all she'll eat at a sitting, and lately either some split pea porridge mixed in with that. Also, I stick in a couple pinches of either ground flax seeds or brewer's yeast. She also gets some cut-up fruit. I know now that we're not supposed to give them strawberries till later, but I did it before I read that, so she gets strawberries pretty often, sometimes bananas or blueberries or kiwi.

Lunch: More porridge, usually the opposite of what she had for breakfast. Sometimes I'll give her the cereal out of the box just to get it used up. Maybe a block of kale, usually a veggie and a fruit.

Dinner: Repeat of lunch, I usually try to give her at least two veggie/fruit options to play with on her tray. Sometimes I let her have an entire rice cake to gnaw on, but I watch her really carefully because she sometimes gets big chunks in her mouth.

We aren't really doing meat or dairy yet. I tried yogurt a couple weeks ago and had weird poop. Now that she's back to normal, I'm thinking about testing the waters again. I didn't like changing 6 poopy diapers a day AT ALL. A couple weeks ago we were at a barbecue restaurant and she was desperate to have the rib I was eating. So I did let her gnaw on the mostly-empty bone and she was in seventh heaven. I felt like a bad mommy because who knows what's in the sauce, but she loved it so much, and it meant that I got to eat a few more bites of dinner in peace. This last weekend she did the same thing over a chicken drumstick, and I went ahead and let her have it. I think I may have a meat lover on my hands.

OMG! The junk that the women in my mommy and me class have been feeding their kids just frightens me! Canned chicken - the kind in the flat tuna-fish shaped can. American cheese slices. Cheese doodles, goldfish crackers, ice cream, and plenty of other amazingly stupid stuff that I can't remember right now. Plus, the mommies who weaned to formula early for no particular reason are now switching to whole milk just shy of a year. I feel so sorry for those kids' little bodies!

Oh, and another food question - how careful are you all about using organics? So far, I've fed Julie probably 95% organic stuff. As strongly as I feel about doing the right thing for my baby and the planet, it is expensive! Sometimes I am tempted to go ahead and buy the cheaper stuff, but I haven't done it for her yet. With Julie eating real food, we have more fresh fruit and veggies in the house than I can remember ever having before in my life. I had never even considered cooking kale before reading the super baby food book.

Look at this crazy long post. I'm sorry - I've been thinking all this food stuff for a while and forgetting to actually write about it when I get my chance here.