June '04 Mamas - is it really February? - Page 2

[Balancin1]

Us too on the nighttime diaper front. I have been changing R several times a night.

R goes onto her hands and knees from a sit, rocks for a while, then bellyflops and howls. It's so funny and so pathetic. She loves to stand up, can bend down and pick something up and right herself again if she is hanging on with the other hand. Still has no sense of caution about gravity though. I wonder if babies would ever stand if they knew what they were up against.

A better night's sleep last night, but those teeth are still bothering her, poor munchkin. My batteries are pretty low too so I am trying to nurture myself.

seedling, tell your DH the tornado will let him off in Oz, that he ain't in Kansas anymore. I can relate. I hope things get better and I think its really hard not to be in a mood when one is drained beyond belief. I can't believe I am driving a car some days...

[Greaseball]

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[mattjule]

yay, good to see you grease!!

mum-thanks for posting that link to up to ten. tain has been glued to the puter all day laughing hysterically! he was getting so bored with pbs and thomas...

[Greaseball]

I know, I've been guilty of only popping in when I want to talk about ME...

[rubelin]

Hey all! I've been having just a rotten day. Finally got the boys to bed and Dan is off to dry the laundry at the laundromat so I'm having some quiet time at last

Kieran is also getting serious seperation anxiety; whenever I have to run into the next room for something, he's heading my way, gets about halfway there before I come back in and he turns back around, and he sometimes does it several times. He's way advanced mobility-wise, which I kind of expected as Ben was also, but he's just moving far too early. He's been crawling since around Thanksgiving, started pulling up to stand and cruise just after Thanksgiving and I swear he'll be walking on his own in a minute. He's really agile, too, can crawl right to the edge of the bed and turn around to sit without even teetering. He's fallen over a lot in the past 2 months, but it's happening less and less as his balance is getting so much better.

Still no teeth and barely any hair, and what little he has is so light you can barely see it. He laughs so much and babbles almost constantly; "ba ba ba ba ba ba and ma ma ma ma ma ma (each syllable said very distinctly, with lips smacking, it's almost funnier to watch than to hear!), keekeekeekeekee (which seems to be directed at the cats, like he's trying to say kitty??) raspberries and assorted other interesting sounds. He's had some solids, just stuff that we're eating, but he had a really, um, solid poo yesterday so I might back off a bit to let his system get used to it all more slowly. I'm doing that gall bladder cleanse this week so I'm eating a lot of apples (the pectin is supposed to help soften the gallstones) and he's been wanting to share but I think they're binding him up too much.

hmm, what else?? oh yes, nursing gymnastics driving. me. insane! He's so freaking distractable he pops on and off 20 times and tries to climb over my shoulder while still holding on to my breast. When I put him to bed, he skooches up and up with his tush in the air trying to keep a latch on the nipple until he's almost above me and can't hold on anymore, so I scoop him up and put him back down, relatch and he does it again. It takes 2 or 3 cycles before he'll settle enough to actually fall asleep. have I mentioned it is driving me insane??

I really hope things settle down soon around here, I don't think I can keep going at this pace without snapping. My dad came and rewired the electric in the garage/studio so I can start working out there when it's not too cold (which it has been). Now we just have ot wait for our tax return to get the plywood to finish the walls of the garage and set up the playroom. I can't wait!!

Geez, this got long. Sorry to write such a me post especially seeing as I post so rarely. I'm reading often and answering y'all in my head, I just never get it typed out Hope you are all having a good week. May February be a faboo month for us all!!

[mattjule]

don't we all talk about us when we post? Besides, I love hearing about everyone else, I don't think anyone should apologize!

I can't believe the acrobatics slipped my mind! He will only nurse now with one leg on mine but the other between my legs. That isn't so bad except he is really into putting both his legs in between mine and pushing them straight so he is standing on the couch but bent at the waist to stay latched on. He isn't cruising yet so he bends and straightens his legs a lot, very jerkily since he doesn't have good muscle control yet. Makes me crazy!!

Ro IS getting a tooth! So I was right the first time. He never got a bump in his gums, they just sort of made a hole and now I can feel the tooth. Since he didn't get a bump, I started to think I was hallucinating the little hole but it is definitely there today and, like I said, I can feel the edge of the tooth. I called my mom and told her he was too little to get teeth. She said "he's just too young for one of your babies. He can even be considered a little late by other people's standards." It was funny since Tain didn't get any teeth until 11 mo.

Ro is so loving the solids. He has had some stinky farts, though! After someone posted about solids giving their baby painful gas I have tried to give him plenty of time between the last feeding of the day and bedtime. It is working well for us. So thanks for that, I don't think I would have thought about it otherwise.

Gotta go

[Smithie]

My God, did anybody read that sticky from Cynthia about cursing and sexy talk?



You just KNOW that there have been people, actual adult human beings who are responsible for the care of children, who have been whining to the mods about dirty words and dirty talk. I wonder how THEIR babies got made. Me, I had sex with my husband. And I would do it again. And sometimes when my frustration with my husband or my baby reaches a high level, I like to use adult language when conversing with my peers. Imagine that.

(collectively addressing the prudish PMers) Get a freaking LIFE! Telling your KID how to behave is "coercive," but playing hall monitor with other adults in what is supposed to be a supportive community space is hunky-dory? A little consistency, please, mamas!

:

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by Smithie

I wonder how THEIR babies got made. Me, I had sex with my husband. And I would do it again. And sometimes when my frustration with my husband or my baby reaches a high level, I like to use adult language when conversing with my peers. Imagine that.

:LOL Well, that's how my babies got made, too... but in all fairness, it's not always the case these days.... As to the language, if you think I have a problem with it, you probably haven't read my blog at all. : :



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[3girlsmommy]

smithie: I think some complain just to complain.

Lily is becoming a monkey while she nurses. She flips and flops and kneads my boob.

[mattjule]

i was wondering about the sexual innuendo part last night. does that mean we aren't supposed to talk about sex at all or that we just aren't supposed to go into details or that they would like some ppl to be less lewd? Because sex is part of being a mother and when you have really young children, sex is a issue you talk to your peers about. Our problems surrounding it aren't going to go away just because we aren't supposed to talk about it, that just seems so 50's, yk? Shove it down, ignore it, don't talk about it and miraculously it won't exist anymore. Plus, how many children are reading MDC? Come on, we are all adults here. Maybe they are having problems with certain forums and so made a blanket statement. When I surf TAO, the flavor of the threads is a lot more "adult" (not the XXX type of adult :LOL). I don't think anything we say here is really a problem and I would be surprised if someone outside of our circle thought so.

Balancin-how's your sleep? Have those teeth shown up yet?

[prmom]

Hey all! Glad to see others are having to deal with nursing contorsionist (sp?) too. Gavin just doesn't want to miss out on anything and he doesn't want to stop moving.

I am off to take Gavin to the peds soon. He has a horrible cough. All the kids I watch have been spreading around pink eye and hopefully my kids won't get it. I have heard that to help soothe the symptoms of pink eye that one could spray some breastmilk into the eye? Or am I thinking of a sty?

Yeah...I was surprised by the sex talk notice. I guess I can see why some would be offended. Of course, I have almost peed my pants laughing at some of the threads that had sexual innuendo. They weren't intended to be perverse,and they weren't, they were just reality. Funny reality too.

I have been a little burned out with mdc. Sometimes I feel like I read the same gripes from people who are not happy with a question or something or another that someone wrote. I am scared to start a thread and only reply when it seems harmless. Oh well. I think one of you recently had some neg. replies when starting a thread in Family bed...that's exactly the thing that annoys me is the responses you got from a reasonable question.

[LizD]

Maybe it's just the time of year when people get dissatisfied and dogmatic and whiny? I notice this IRL too and am trying hard to keep my temper. It seems to require not seeing too many people. I would like to have a discussion about certain sleep issues and "remedies," but it seems impossible to do in this "community" (present company excepted). It makes me want to backlash and buy some target brand formula (has anyone else noticed this?!), pullups, let the baby CIO, and put him in Minnie & Mickey daycare.

I was reading Dr Spock's book (which I think is wonderful and unjustly maligned by a lot of people, which started with his opposition to the Vietnam War. He got a lot of bad press for raising the "me" generation with his "permissiveness." I don't agree with everything he says, but I don't agree with everything anyone says). He talks about "chronic sleep resistance" which he says is quite rare. He says you should let the baby cry a while (no more than 20mins, which for a big baby I don't think is unreasonable or cruel, I really don't. We're not talking about newborns) and that if this is the problem, it will take no more than 2 or 3 nights for the baby to stop nightwaking. He says if you don't want to do this, try a method much like NCSS describes. Spock says that since it takes only 2 nights for the problem to be "fixed" and these babies in question seem perfectly happy and attached the rest of the time, they too are relieved at having a boundary set and more rest. Again, we aren't talking about ordinary nightwaking or very young babies but a rut of being unable to sleep. Please don't flame me. : I haven't tried this but Rowan sleeps *so* badly I have wondered if he isn't one of these rare ones. I don't know if letting him cry a while would work, though sometimes when I can't pick him up right away (I have dashed in for a fast shower, and am talking to him, for instance), a good cry does seem to leave him relaxed and tuckered out. I know I like a good cry now and then to relieve tension.

What made me post this is my growing frustration with certain topics being off-limits here. Am I less a member of the community than anyone else, and if not, then why shouldn't I be able to raise this topic without being flamed with replies like "I am sickened by your post" (I saw this a few months ago in response to someone who delayed going to her 10 mo and the baby fell right asleep after crying a few minutes). I don't want to start a huge debate on CIO but it seems to me that this off-limits attitude is only harming people. If someone formula feeds but wants the closeness and lifestyle of a breastfeeding mother, shouldn't she have the resources to find that? If someone needs or wants a cesarean, shouldn't we all advocate for a gentler birth environment than currently exists in most ORs?

Back on topic---- Rowan has "walked" down the hall holding our hands with big wheeling steps. He loves this.

[3girlsmommy]

Liz- I get what you are saying. I think dailoging about certain issues is important. I think that as long as you are not telling people that this is the only way and everyone else is wrong I don't see why things can't be discussed. It really bugs me when someone posts something and they get slammed! I really don't see how that is helpful to anyone. I think you can offer different opinions in a respectful manner without trashing someone. There are things that I don't ask due to fear of being slammed. It really feels a lot like if you don't go along w/ the majority then keep your mouth shut. Anyway I just wanted to say that I agree w/ you. Outside of this "group" I'm usually fearful of being attacked. I try and operate on the t"ake what works for me and leave the rest" philosophy.

[Greaseball]

Many members have tried to get the no-sex rule reversed. I had some ideas: make it a separate forum that only senior members can get into. Monitor it to make sure no one posts porn links and stuff like that. Make all senior members prove their identity, so they can make sure no one is under 18.

The mods still don't want to take a chance, I guess...

[Kia]

Hello June mamas!! Can I jump in here??

I have been debated whether to join you or not as I almost always have a baby on the breast when I have time to do MDC, so I was wondering how much I could post. But then I realized that this is probably the rule more than the exception, right?? Tee hee.

Anyway, I have been reading you all for a while and really liking what I read and then I read this page and decided that I had to join you because now instead of just liking you I think I have fallen in lurve

Can I give you a short intro? I feel I know so much about you but you don't know this person who just jumped into your conversation. So here it goes:

(Scroll to the bottom of my post, if this gets too long!)

So, I am Kia. A 35 year-old Canadian mom living in France with my French husband and my 3 children. I have a 7 year-old boy, a 5 year-old boy and my little June baby, Alina, born on the 25th. (who just woke up more later...)

[Kia]

Me again

So...I am a SAHM but I do quite a bit of translation work from home (Danish-English, if you are interested).

It is so interesting to see what your little June babies are doing. Alina doesn't seem to be in a hurry. She's sitting alright but a gust of wind could blow her over! She is not mobile at all and really would rather not roll - although she has shown me that she can. She spends just about all of her time in my arms or in my husband's arms. Unlike your little ones, Alina doesn't seem to be suffering from separation anxiety. On the contrary, it's as if her sa has finally stopped and she has decided that other arms are quite nice and sometimes even fun!

Alina is something like 97.8 percent breastfed still. She likes solids - for fun - but not for nutrition.

What else?? Ummm...she has blond peach fuzz and black as coal eyes. Oh and 1 tooth with another one on the way.

And she doesn't actually sleep. She can wake up 16 times a night. One night she only slept 12 minutes. I don't know how she does and I don't know how I do it. I am doing the NCSS and it's helping but still...man...this is tough. My boys weren't like this. I'm too old...

Off to get much-needed sleep...(yeah right)

Looking forward to getting to know you better,

KIA

[Smithie]

Welcome, Kia and Alina!

Liz, I am so thrilled to hear that Dr. Spock has a "method" like that, because it sure worked wonders in Chez Smithie. My sweet baby was EXHAUSTED, could no longer sleep in my bed with me (woke up whenever daddy or dogs moved a muscle), and was waking much more often than he needed to feed. I would put him to the breast and he would just sob (this is when he was still in our bed). I don't expect anybody else here to let their baby cry a little if that doesn't seem right to them, but it would be nice not to feel demonized for a solution that has resulted in everybody getting more and better sleep, YKWIM?

Rynna - thanks for catching that. I totally did not mean to ellide those babies conceived through the miracle of modern technology, or the good old-fashioned turkey baster.

[Kathryn]

I'm popping in on this thread, hope ya'll don't mind. Dakota is growing up way too fast. She's been sitting and crawling for about 2 1/2 months now. She's standing on her own for a couple of seconds now (instead of just standing with support)! She will walk if you hold her hands or along side the couch or something like that. She now has two teeth on bottom and four teeth on top. She's still only having very small bites of food from what we're eating. No real solids yet. She has started blowing rasberries and she loves playing peekaboo and got your nose. She loved hiding dog food in her hands to eat later. Try as I might to keep it from her, she always manages to find some. She hates getting dressed, hates putting a diaper on, and hates getting her face or nose wiped (I can't blame her) and she actually will bite me if I try to do any of that. Good thing we live in a hot state so she can run around naked in summer.
She's now a whopping 15 lbs. She still is wearing 3-6 month clothing, but she's starting to get too tall for most of it. She's still a skinny little thing so the 6-9 month stuff looks like she's wearing a tent.
I love hearing about all the other little cuties born in June. I'd love to see pictures too if anyone feels like sharing. I'll post one of my dd later.

[eilonwy]

Hello! I have pictures in my sig.

The sleep thing-- Miss BooBah likes to sleep with me, or in the sling with anyone or by herself. Mike says that if she's burned out and he's trying to calm her, the best thing he can do is put her down and turn the light off. She's never cried for more than a minute after that; she seems to become overstimulated by his attempts to calm her sometimes. Not so much recently, but still it happens.

BooBah has a little bit of hair, but not much. Well, that's not true, it's just that it's growing in three different colors and you can only see the strawberry blonde in certain lights. When you see her in daylight, you can see that she had a lot more hair than you think, because there's a whole bunch of strawberry blonde hairs under the mouse brown of the top.

My son is trying desperately to read. It's truly fascinating to watch. I just get such a kick out of watching my kids try new things, it's absolutely incredible to me to watch their little brains and bodies work! I can sit and stare at them doing their things for ages, and I've actually spent entire days just watching them acquire new skills.

Smithie- :LOL

I think the sex talk prohibition is to prevent people from getting hits to MDC when they do searches for "naughty talk" but I could be wrong... maybe it's just one more attempt to appease the neo-cons.

I efiled Mike's taxes today. I'm so excited! We're getting back everything he paid in. We'll be able to pay off the electric bill for good, and get BooBah's new carseat and plenty of shoes for BeanBean and maybe I'll be able to get a license to sell LTK soakers, which would be very freaking cool. The idea of getting paid to knit is still really impressive to me.

[Queen of Cups]

Hello to the new people on the thread! I have pictures in my sig that I change every couple of weeks (I'm wacky like that).

DH and I finally have some checks coming in (running your own business is always an adventure) so I think I'm going to try to do some more portraits of Killy. I haven't done a set of them since November and he's suddenly looking a lot older. I like to take pics, have DH edit them for color correction and such, and then order TONS of prints from Clark Color Labs. I have about three months worth of snapshots I need to have printed, too.

Okay, here's a weird thing: I keep seeing a bit of a top tooth poking out of Killy's upper gum - and then it dissapears! This has happened a couple of times. DH has confirmed it each time, too.

This clothing thing is NUTS! I just bought a new pair of Baby Gap overalls in 12-18 month size, and the crotch-snaps keep popping loose already! I bought it assuming it would last till summer. I swear, I've spent so much on baby clothes lately because he just keeps outgrowing everything so quick. Everyone told me that the growth rate would slow down around 6 months, but it hasn't as much as I thought it would.

We've got combo crawling-rolling. Crawl a few feet, roll a few feet, repeat. Pull up and cruise for awhile, fall down and wail inconsolibly. So goes the life of Killy. The little man does love to eat, though! He still nurses 2-4 times during the night, and 5-6 times a day (usually, though some days he gets a bit reversed and nurses all night), plus eating 2-3 meals a day. He surprized me the other day by saying, "more, more, more!" when I got myself a plate of lunch the other day and didn't fix anything for him. (I tried teaching him to say or sign more when he wants more food, but he seems to think "more" means food now!) Another interesting note, DH pointed out that Killy calls me "mama" about half the time and "ama" the other half. Its pretty cute!