April 2005 mams May thread - Page 2

[SparklyMoose]

Gabriel will mimic me every time I sneeze. It's hilarious. He thinks he's very funny.

Also, I put him in his high chair with a container of yogurt and a spoon a couple of days ago. He'll use the spoon a little bit (if it's something that will cling if he touches the spoon to it), but he's holding the spoon in one hand and trying to pick the yogurt up with the other. And then he knocked the container over and started to cry, which I found entertaining--because, you know, now that it's knocked over he can't eat it with his fingers anymore? He's SO silly.

Oh, and at his year checkup, she asked if he could use a cup yet. No, he hasn't figured out the gravity thing yet. Oh, no big deal--he'll have it mastered by the next time he comes in. Yeah. He will. THE VERY NEXT DAY, I handed him a sippy cup and he used it, no big deal, like there was never an issue with it.

[mighty-mama]

Man, I can't keep up w/ you mama's...

I'm doing good. I am bald, and I hate getting stared at in public, but I've found I do better w/ wigs then bandana's. (less staring). I've completed 3 cycles of the drug AC, I have 1 more of AC, then 4 of a drug taxol. I"ve been told Taxol is much easier then AC, althought It's not 1/2 as bad as I thought. I got a wonderful compliment from my oncologist the other day, he told me how impressed he is, on how well I"m handling this, but I have no choice I need to be Noah's mom for a lot longer..

Wombat- how scary about the stabbing... I'm getting chills..

**Anyone got a screamer on there hands? OMG, if Noah gets frustrated he lets out a high pitched scream. I swear, It will make us deaf. We also have weaned him off formula and he's on straight goat's milk. Are you mama's still nursing? I hope so...

Yes Vanessa, we have a cat tormentor here as well. He doesn't go after them per say, but loves to scream at them. They definetely will put a smille on a sad face too.

[AEZMama]

Jess-I think we're all pretty amazed at what a strong mama you are!

Andrew only screams in the carseat-he tries "busting" out after about 5 or 10 minutes since he's not used to being in it that often these days.

Goat milk...Andrew breaks out in hives with cow's milk, so I'll have to try goat milk for him. I have weaned him off the formula as much as possible, but he absolutely won't drink water without a bit in there. I was going to try lactose free organic milk, but I think I'll take the goats milk route.

How is everyone else this week? Nice to meet you btw SparklyMoose!

[wombatclay]

Heyla Mighty Mama! My aunt was on Taxol for a while and while she didn't like, she did say it was better than the other drugs she was taking. She had more energy and felt more "like herself". Noah and your DH are soooooo lucky to have such a wonderful, strong, and determined woman in their lives! Your oncologist is right...you totally kick butt!

Laia still demands "boom boom" on a regular basis. She had a mini-marathon a few days ago when he first molar came through (she now has 9 teeth fully through and two more molar "lumps"!) but usually she nurses 8 or 9 times a day. I still pump at work but I'm hoping to wean off the pump soon.

She loves her solids as well so I offer "boom" frequently but also offer solids (grapes are her current fav food, she'd eat grapes till she popped if I let her). I figure the nursing keeps her fairly balanced nutritionally so I'm not too worried that all she's eaten for two days is a huge bunch of grapes, balsamic vinger (she dipped her finger into the vinager I was using as a salad dressing and was hooked), and baked ziti.

Laia also gives our cat a run for his money. The problem is Thai is such a laid back cat that he just doesn't seem to realize he can run away! We've taught Laia the sign for "gentle" and we demonstrate "soft touch" over and over and over...but when she gets excited (and she almost always thinks Thai is exciting) she starts smacking him with her hands and grabbing huge handfuls of fur. I'm afraid she's going to get bitten or that Thai is really going to get hurt! So we're trying to find a good balance. Thai hates being away from his people, and keeping the little miss and the absentminded cat apart is a challenge.

And heyla to all the "new" April mamas! Glad to meet you all!

[dolphin_diva27]

Oh I'm so glad this post came up today. I was looking for it. Well first off. I'm new to this site. I have a baby boy born April 5th 2005. My name is Tara. I'm 26 living with boyfriend (daddy to my son). He is a great one at that. I live in CR Iowa. I have lived here for over a year. I hadn't worked after my son was born until december 2005. Its just a part time. But now i have found a new fulltime job. So I won't be able to stay home as much with my son. He is going to be going to day care. I'm hoping he will be ok with that. Well I can't wait to get to know some of the April 05 mamas. nice to meet you all!

[wombatclay]

Yay for another April 5th baby!

Hi dolphin diva...our little one's have the same birthday. Glad you could join us!

[liawbh]

Eek, wait! I'm not ready for this forum

Evan just got teeth #5 and 6. He's walking all over the place - the bruises are less frequent now. He's def. a daredevil compared to my oldest. Yikes!

~OK, Marcus just got hurt as I was typing about him being cautious He was practicing yo-yo while standing ON THE TRAMPOLINE! Um, yeah, it bounced up and hit him. Not serious, but maybe he learned something.~

Evan's nursing alllll the time lately, because of the teething I assume. He eats lots of solids, too. Really not into spoons at all. i bought him a little fork last week. It has rounded outer tines and shorter inner tines, so it can poke food, but not the mouth. He likes stabbing stuff, but then wants to pick it up off the fork with the other hand.

His best trick is to say "hi, Dad" when DH walks in the door. Sooo cute!


Mighty-mama, you are strong! Hope the Taxol is easier on you.


Yikes about the neghborhood violence. One of the few things I don't miss about Portland.

[JustVanessa]

dolphin

I work full time too. My son is being cared for by a friend (which isn't working out) and he starts daycare on June 1st. Good luck with your new job and looking forward to getting to know you

[Cardinal]

Also wanted to ask for ideas for what to do with our one-year olds on a rainy day?

[Cardinal]

Hi Ladies. My little man was born April 30, so I barely made this April thread!!

We are finally doing his first birthday party today and I am a little nervous because everyone wants to give him cake! *groan*

Jonathan can walk everywhere and is great with his motor skills, but he hasn't spoken at all yet. Any other mamas have this problem? I think he is being snarky and knows I am stressed out because he won't say his first word. I just want to hear "mama!!" Or any word for that matter!

Are any of ya'll trying for another baby? I'd really like to get pregnant again soon but AF has only happened once and I had a m/c last month. We'll just see!!

[Cardinal]

How long do your babies sleep at night? Jonathan is sleeping 10-12 hours, but wakes up 4 times. This is a major change as he was sleeping 9 hours straight. *sigh* I thought that was a permanent thing! ha ha!

[wombatclay]

hi Cardinal!

Let's see....Laia is a little "chatter monkey" (as Dh puts it) since she's a big talker. Which isn't surprising since I'm sort of a non-stop talker myself! Her current favorite word is "up", followed by "no" (if we don't pick her up, or don't interpret her desires quickly enough!). We are still big fans of ASL and she has a decent sign vocab as well...we sometimes forget, but we're trying to be really good about signing along with speaking. It really helps that one of the mama's in our playgroup is gung-ho about sign and her son uses sign a lot. Laia and the other babe in the group sort of copy him. I think language development is a really twitchy thing though...some babes speak "late" but start out in full sentences, so just because they're ot jabbering away doens't mean they're not building their language skills! I know it's got to be hard to wait for those yummy baby words, but trust me...a chorus of "nyo nyo NYO" isn't really that exciting!

DH and I just started TTC (well, not trying NOT to c, if that makes sense). We wanted to wait till dd was at least a year before starting since I had a c/s and want to maximize my VBAC chances (two years between c/s delivery and VBAC delivery is considered the best minimum spacing) and we didn't want to risk dd's nursing since many mamas have a real supply dip during pregnancy. The idea is to nurse during pregnancy and then tandem, but I know plans change and so we waited for dd to get at least that first year!

For sleep...well...that changes almost daily! Laia still takes two naps most days. A morning nap around 10 or 11 that lasts about 45 minutes, and an afternoon nap around 2 that lasts an hour to an hour and a half. We don't have a set bedtime, but she'll usually start to yawn around 8 or 8:30, we'll take a bath, do a little baby massage, put on pjs, then nurse to sleep. If dh and I are staying up dd will sleep in her sling or on one of us till we all go up to bed.

Usually she'll wake two or three times to nurse or snuggle, but this week she's been crazy...feet and arms and bottoms and chins and random body parts all over the place! I think she's trying to walk in her sleep or something, but it's getting out of hand. We're going to put the twin mattress next to the queen this weekend so we'll have more space and hopefully that will help. Oh, and when her molar came through she was nursing every 30 minutes or so all night long. It was exhausting (I work part time) but it only lasted a few days.

Long post and I know I missed some of your questions, but welcome to the thread!

[AEZMama]

Hello & Welcome Tara & Cardinal!

Clay-I think that Andrew and Laia may be made for each other! Their sleep pattern is SOOOO similar! Though, he's never been a solid nighttime sleeper and I'm looking forward to that day! I know that when they're on the verge of walking or just getting the hang of using those little legs, sleep gets disrupted.

As of today, he officially has 11 teeth (7 lower, 4 upper) with 2 more on the cusp of emerging on top. With all those teeth, he's still not into anything that isn't pureed! We've only gotten a "buh buh" for bye bye, but I'm not sure if he's said official words and his palate issues have gotten in the way. Time will tell!

I'd love to ttc, but unless we come into some sort of financial windfall we're sticking to Andrew and my step-daughter! I'd love to have a dd!

Well, time to take advantage of naptime so I'm off for my own! Take care mamas!

[JustVanessa]

My body thinks its time to TTC but my brain is screaming NO NO NO! But I am getting lots of biological mommy urges. I am not going to TTC until he in only getting up once a night on a regular basis (or less). I don't think I could survive first trimester pregnancy with this little sleep. Byron is very very close to walking. He can take 2 step from me to the couch.


He had a vax yesterday and did very well. He only had the meningicoccal one...we are going to delay the chicken pox one until kindergarten and we aren't doing the MMR. Ifeel really good about our decisions but the public health nurses are sooo pushy :
Where are you with the vaxing?


Byron has a new word today...its tickle. Its so cute if you say "Byron tickle daddy", he will grab Stan's foot and say "tica, tica"
That brings his vocab to
mama, dada, booboo (nursing), nana(food) and tica tica.

When he was born I didn't think I could ever love something so much...and now I know it just grows more every day!
Ursula-cute pic on your blog. Byron sits under his excersaucer too!

[PeanutMM78]

YAY! An April 05 thread! I am new to this board and thought I would look for some other April 05 Mommys. My name is Michelle. Cali was born April 5 2005. I still can't believe she is already one! Where has the time gone?

I am a WAHM/home school mom to my older dd. We live and work in South Korea. I am looking forward to getting to know everyone!

[wombatclay]

Wow! So many new mamas to get to know! Yay for April babies!

Vanessa- we do vax, but on a delayed schedule, and not all of them. I totally respect mamas who decide not to vax at all (there are plenty here at mdc!) though I do wish everyone would remember to be respectful of other mama's choices....there was a thread in the Life With a Babe forum that got pretty heated pretty quickly and I just hate to see that happening!

Actually, I think I might ask to have my Rubella titer checked...I hurt my back and need to see a doctor pretty soon anyway to get that checked out, and if my rubella is good then we might delay Laia's MMR till she's 18-24 months. Mostly my concern is that we're ttc and if my rubella titer is low and Laia catches rubella while I'm pregnant...well....that would not be good.

We haven't had Laia's 12 month check up yet, but we were there a month ago for the roseola thing so maybe that counts. We do plan on getting a lead test done some time very soon however (since we've got an old house, the lead is probably in the dirt in the yard, and it's such an avoidable toxicity if you catch it quickly!) and I'm not really looking forward to that. We'll ask for the emla cream, but it's still not going to be a happy moment, I know.

off to lunch...have fun mamas!

[AEZMama]

How fun to have all the new mamas here! Welcome welcome!

Vanessa-we do full vax because of Andrew's medical issues. We just can't take the risk of him getting anything while we're still watching the slight valve leak in his heart. The nurses are great with giving the shots, and Andrew is so used to the poking, prodding & sticking that he's got a smile back on his face by the time the bandages are put on. His ped. has been so on top of things and has gotten us paired with some great specialists that I don't doubt much that he wants to do, and he is very good about answering my questions. I do follow up with a friend of mine in Boston, but she always concurs with his findings.

[speedknitter]

Welcome to all the new April Mamas and Toddlers!!!

Well, we are pretty mainstream when it comes to medical care - well baby checks, vax, all that stuff. Julie has done fine with all the vax's so far, we have spread some of them out a little more than the regular schedule. If we decide to have another baby (jury's still out) I might do a lot more research and make a different decision on vaxing, but I'm OK with what we are doing and really respect every parent's decision with regard to this issue.

Ursula, wow Andrew has a lot of teeth!!! Julie just got #8, the lower right one came in last week.

Julie is transitioning from two naps to one nap a day. We had a few rough nights where she took her 2nd nap really late and then was up until after midnight, but now she's doing great on one long nap from noon-ish until about 2:30 pm, and then going to bed at her usual 10 pm, sleeping until about 7-8 am (sometimes waking around 6:30 am to climb into bed with mama ) She sleeps in a crib right next to our bed, but usually ends up spending 1-2 nights a week in bed with us the whole night. It is a really nice blend of co-sleeping and crib sleeping...sometimes I need my space, KWIM?

wombatclay, how is your brother's recuperation going? A nurse at my sister's school lost her son in that helicopter crash last weekend

[wombatclay]

speedknitter- I'm so sorry for your sister's friend. It's just not a good situation for anyone.

John is doing good as far as I can tell. I finally got to talk with him (I'd been missing his calls...alaska and new york are 4 hours off so it's hard to find a mutually useful time). His doctor in Fairbanks still hasn't set his arm, which I think is a bit odd but apparently the doctor claims this is the best way to deal with the situation. John is getting a bit frustrated though since he can't really start healing till after the reconstructive surgery and they wont be able to tell him what the total damage is till then either.

They know that the tendons in his wrist are totally cut, but don't know if they'll be able to reconnect them or if they'll need to fuse the wrist. He has decent range of motion in his thumb, pointer, and middle finger but his ring finger and pinkie have tendon damage and they don't know if he'll have use of those two fingers. And there's something funky with his elbow...possibly a new "joint" will be needed there, and many many pins and plates and screws to rebuild the forearm. But they're saying worst case scenario something like a 50% full recover, and best case scenario around 85-90% recovery.

And considering how much worse it could have been (John said he covered his face with his arm when the van exploded, so the damage to his arm could have been to his head)...and considering how much worse it is for other members of his unit (and their families), I really can't complain.

One thing that really get's me mad though is that his medals were stolen out of his bag! And this is apparently par for the course...the medals and ribbons go for plenty of money on ebay and "specialty" military web sites and since the bags are legitimately searched at so many points on the trip from Iraq to the final US base there's really no way to find the people doing this. In fact, John was told that it was really unusual that his wallet still had money in it since that usually disappears too. And I think that just stinks. I mean, here you've got someone injured in combat, possibly seriously injured, and they get home and find that their medals and ribbons and what not that is really pretty measly recompense for losing an arm or leg has been stolen? Grrrrr.

Ah well...time for a few deep breaths (John said he didn't care about the medals anyway, he's just glad to be home with his wife) and then off to bed! Laia's been having a crabby day and right not she's resisting sleep. So it's off to bed for us all!

[mighty-mama]

hey ladies..

wombat - I can't believe they stole from your bro, how disgusting. My good friend's dh just retired from the army, he has told me so many revolting stories. It seems like it's similair to when people get incarcirated. They become a different breed and do things they would never do home.

I"m so glad some of you are still nursing... That's awesome. I like to think I was able to do extending breastfeeding, as I got Noah two days past his 1st b-day.

We are also crossing our fingers for another child. I did get my period the other week, right on schedule too. With chemo the standard is if you're over 35 you normally go into menopause, if your under you have about a 65% chance of getting your period. Since I"m 28 that's good. Obviouslly getting my period, means hopefully my eggs won't be damaged. We do have to wait at least 2yrs from the end of chemo to try. Until that time comes I"m going to do a lot of research regarding increasing breast cancer re-occurance and pregnancy. If the odds aren't in our favor then maybe we won't try.. Not having another child for me is more upsetting then getting cancer. I feel sad for not enjoying Noah when he was littler. I always thought, I'd be able to have the pregnancy/birth experience again.