June is Blooming, Nov '05 Mamas!

[*Amy*]

Hey Mamas!! Happy June!! My birthday is in 11 days! I'm not sure if I'm excited about it, or dreading it. I know a lot of other mamas in our DDC have June birthdays too, but I don't remember all of them.

Hey could y'all take a look at this thread and let me know if you have any thoughts? My friend is really having some BF issues right now.

And QoC, I forgot to mention this in my last post, but WOW!!! I can't believe y'all went on vacay, moved, had a b-day party, and got your family pics done. You are SUPERFAMILY! I hope you didn't wear yourselves out. Congrats on your new home and I hope you love being back!!!

[Queen of Cups]

Look at me, posting on the FIRST page!

Thanks, Amy - we did wear ourselves out, but its easier to recover with family around to help out.

Not much more to say at the moment, just subbing...

[flapjack]

Oooh, happy birthday Amy!
Life here is manic- I hate half term week. Mum has gone back to Durham, the boys have trashed the house, the dog ate this month's baking which means I have nothing left to put in lunchboxes, and Skye is getting more and more toddlerish by the second. She forgot to nap yesterday, went to bed at 5.30, got up at 6am, was back in bed by 9 and slept through until noon. Is this teeth, or ????? I can't wait until Monday.

[MelW]

Happy June, everyone!

Teresa, that photo of Woody is exactly what Neela looked like sleeping. Too cute!

I have a June birthday, too- tomorrow. My DH had done an excellent job of keeping my birthday gift a secret (we have a tradition of me finding gifts/receipts or other "clues") until yesterday when Neela brought me a bag- with my birthday present in it She was rummaging through his dresser drawers and found something new and interesting to show me. So I got my beautiful birthday dress a couple of days early. I'm making yummy vegan carrot cake right now as my birthday gift to myself. Neela has been helping, so we have sticky mess all over the kitchen.

[DreamsInDigital]

My birthday is in 12 days, but I'll only be 26 so I'm not really dreading it.

I think Suriya has the measles. She had a 103 degree temp for 2 days, it went away and then she broke out in spots all over her face and head and neck, and now it's gone to her tummy and back and legs. She's really fussy, sleepy but won't stay asleep, crying every time I move or breathe wrong or if someone turns on a light or makes any sort of noise. I'm not sure what to do, if anything. She doesn't have a fever anymore but she seems very uncomfortable.

[spiritmomma]

Hey Ladies!
Sorry I've been MIA. We haven't been home much. And so I haven't had a computer handy to check in. I've been keeping up with posts though....

QoC: OMG, you guys have been a busy fam! Love the pics!

Helen: Congrats and happy vibes for a HH9!

DiD: Job vibes to your hubby! I hope he gets it! And BTW, yes, you are nuts for having baby lust again so soon! But I love you for it... it's inspiring and helps me remember how easy I have it with just one other person to care for (well, 2 if you count DH!)

Fern: Have fun! You've inspired me to take an impromptu day hike in southern Indiana tomorrow. We'll leave first thing in the morning.... can't wait to let Isa wander in the forest. We're hitting the spot where DH and I got married.

Originally Posted by *Amy*

Our good news: I found a great preschool for Brynn starting in the Fall!!!!

......

Speaking of which, I have a confession.

Amy, I've been on the same train. I've found a wonderful Parent's Day Out program at a local Unitarian Church. It runs on a school schedule though, and they don't start again until September. It's just as well, though, because now that I've found a wonderful place for her to be, I'm not ready.
And, though we've not put it together yet, I'm pretty sure we think a crib (convertible, like yours) is the way to go for Isa too. She always makes a big fuss over them at baby stores and signs bed and reaches up. I have asked her several times if she wants a bed like that and she is always so enthusiastic! So weird! So much for my cage-free baby!
She does roll off her mattress a lot and seems to really want some boundaries for her sleeping space. : I don't get it, but I do understand that that is definitely what she is asking me for.

In other news, she's finally talking! Every day new words. Not counting like I did with the signs. I'm just sitting back and watching her unfold at her own pace. She's such a gem! My favorite story of a verbal surprise is this: I had a lit a small green birthday candle to light our (ancient) oven and she signed green and said, "GEEN!" So I reply, "Yes, this candle is green." Then, she signs like and says clear as day, "I like geen!" I'm so proud! Her first sentence!

[Phoenix_Rising]

Happy birthday to all of you June mamas!

DiD- poor Suriya! Are any of the rest of you sick?

Helen- i think you should let the hospital know the real you - hippie, placenta-lovin' you

[flapjack]

DiD, can you take a picture of the spots? That sounds more like chicken pox than measles to me- does she have cold symptoms as well?
Whichever, get some calamine lotion and paint it on and try oatmeal baths.

Skye loves her cot and having her own space. When she comes into bed for the last hours of the night/ first hours for the morning, she sleeps far better than she used to- but when she wants to go to bed she goes and gets her grobag to tell us. It's so sweet. It's making me realise that she hasn't really missed out on anything by not signing- she uses objects of reference instead to tell us what she wants.
The other big obsession at the moment is drawing, on anything and everything. It's adorable. We had a big fight yesterday because Alex was doing an oil pastel drawing and we wouldn't let her join in- so she coloured in a whole newspaper instead- every single page. It took her three hours (with breaks) but she was determined that this would be done

[spiritmomma]

Helen: I love that she colored a whole newspaper! She's very determined!

[HoneyTree]

Helen, I joke with my signing-baby friends about that same thing--See? He DOES sign. He holds his arms up to be picked up, he opens the fridge and points to what he wants me to make him, he gets our going-for-walks carrier when he wants to go for a walk, he squeezes my boob when it's time to nurse...

Amy, Did, and Mel, and the not-yet-spoken-up June birthday mamas, happy birthdays! It's so nice to celebrate a birthday with a youngin'. It's yet another wonderful reason to be glad you're here on earth! (Forgive me, I am having a particularly cheery day--my mom came to visit and helped me clean four of the six rooms in my house. The smell of lemon oil and vinegar and the sight of the floor is making me ridiculously happy.)

Woody tried raspberries for the very first time today. He looked at me all wide-eyed and said so seriously, "MMMMMMMMM." Indeed.

[DreamsInDigital]

Helen, the spots look exactly like the measles/rubella spots, and nothing like the chicken pox.
She has a mild cough/chest congestion but no other cold-like symptoms. She's very irritable and is sleeping a lot. She seems to be over the worst of it though, the spots are less today than they were yesterday.

[flapjack]

DiD.

[spiritmomma]

DiD: I hope Suriya is feeling better soon...

The woods was awesome yesterday! Isa is quite the little hiker. She insisted on walking parts of the trail, so we took a nice SLOW hike around the wilderness area. I made sure she knew the rules were: Stay behind Papa and in front of Mama; and Stay on the path. She did well and seemed to really enjoy the forest. She climbed over logs and fallen trees and even learned to stop tripping over the roots. Around mile 7, though, she was ready to be out of the carrier, but we had 5 more miles to go. After she fell asleep on Papa's back, the hiking went smoothly again. All in all, a really fun day. We even hiked to the spot where Joshua and I got married.: It was a nice day filled with old memories and things that will become memories later. *sigh* I am sore, though, and tired.

[spughy]

Hello everyone! I've been off the computer for about a week, Rowan and I had a challenging week as Rowan managed to contract DH's cold just as he left for Banff and then I got it a few days later. So we had a week together of sniffles and interrupted sleep, but it was ok, we enjoyed the time together (at least, I enjoyed it, I can only surmise that Rowan enjoyed it because she was pretty cheerful the whole time and only asked for Dada once). I had to go through the nightweaning routine for real this time - since I was sleeping with her and she expects booby-to-sleep from me, I had to tell her that the boobies were sleeping. She took it pretty well, cried for about five seconds (literally) a couple of times then just flopped around on her own until she fell back asleep. Of course, I still slept poorly for the whole week because she's a pretty restless sleeper and I got kicked and wiggled on, but we survived. And of course, the first night DH was back she slept the entire night through in her crib. :

But we had a good week, and it certainly beat being at work. I was supposed to go in Friday but I felt really crappy so I took the day off and spent it on the couch watching tv and reading while DH took Rowan to his parents' house.

It's been really warm here and Rowan got to play in the neighbour's wading pool - looooved it. Nothing cuter than a naked baby in a wading pool.

DiD - sorry about Suriya. Poor little thing.

Teresa & Helen - Same here - we never taught Rowan to sign but she picked up the sign for "more" from the neighbours and made up her own signs for "hot", "boobie" and a few other things. I've never had a problem understanding her!

Fern - are you coming to Victoria? Are you already here? Give me a call!!!

Amy - that's cool about the crib. I don't think it's un-AP at all, if that's where Brynn wants to sleep. Isn't sleep wonderful?

[HoneyTree]

Spiritmomma, your hike sounded lovely!

We went for a long walk tonight, too. We moved downtown a few months ago, and now we're about three-quarters of a mile from our favorite coffee shop. So we walked there, walked around the little lake it sits beside, and walked back. It was so nice because it finally rained yesterday and today after three months of drought, so it's a little cool and a little breezy and a little misty. And the smell of jasmine is still barely in the air, and some people had been cooking out, and the June bugs were buzzing around... it was just such an enjoyabe evening stroll.

[*Amy*]

Kavita's here! Yay! It's going to take me a while to call her by her name IRL instead of calling her Kavita.

: Happy Birthday on Saturday, Mel!!! Did you party it up??! :

Hi Spughy! Glad you're back, but sorry you had a crappy sick week. :

It's nice that everyone is getting out and hiking and enjoying the outdoors. We hiked on Saturday too and wore ourselves out. It was great!

Helen, any BFP results yet?

DiD, Poor punkin Suriya!! That must be really hard. I hope she's feeling better. When is DH's next interview? (PS: are our birthdays one day apart? Mine's the 12th.)

Spiritmomma, I've been having the same feelings. Am I ready to let her go?? I think it might be harder for me than her, at least the first couple of weeks!!

Our 3rd wedding anniversary is tomorrow! I am not sure what we are going to do; depends on if we can find a sitter or not. Wish us luck - I sure would love to have a nice peaceful dinner with DH. For once!!

[flapjack]

Amy, hadn't you heard?
I'm due the same day as Strawberryfields and Honeytree (better known as BeTheEarth) How cool is that? 2/2, in case you were wondering- but my pesky doctor insists I have to go by LMP. Makes me 3 days further along Right now I'm feeling beautifully, happily nauseous. Ain't love grand?

Happy anniversary for tomorrow!

[spughy]

Oh, congratulations, Helen!!! I'm so glad you're feeling sick. It's a good sign! Yay sickies!!! err....

I'm back at work now. Bleh. But DH is actually DOING job search things today so hopefully it won't be too long now.

I went shopping yesterday and bought, um, rather a lot of summer clothes. I didn't have any that really fit me so I hit MEC and a local hemp clothing store and got some really nice stuff. That fits me as I am now, not me "when I lose 20 lbs". So I got 3 pairs of capris, a skirt, 2 shirts and a nice big floppy hat because I got my hair cut and subsequently badly sunburned the back of my neck. Because I forgot it was there. Oops. (why is there no "duh" smilie?)

I have a child behavioural issue for you guys - Rowan has started doing this really, really annoying thing where she pinches me and when I say "please don't pinch mummy, love" she kisses it better. Now, I'm all for lots of kisses, but the pinching I could really do without. It's not just for me either, she does it on Grandma and DH too. For the past week or more, I've tried and tried to get her to understand that pinching hurts - I even (please forgive me) tried pinching her, to make her understand - but I don't think I could pinch her hard enough to actually hurt and she just looked confused. I KNOW that's not a good thing to do. : Anyway, I am at a loss over this. Sometimes the pinches are just gentle little tweaks and sometimes they are hard enough to bruise me. I don't feel right about just putting up with it. Last night when she was nursing down for the evening she was getting pinchy and I told her that if she kept pinching me we wouldn't have any more boobies and she'd have to put herself to sleep in her crib. So when she pinched me again I took her into the bedroom and laid her down in her crib and started rubbing her back and talking softly to her - no dice. She was up and screaming in a few seconds. I talked to her a bit more about how mummy didn't want to nurse if she was going to get pinched and then took her back to the couch and nursed some more and she didn't pinch me again. So that worked, but it did take some screaming and, frankly, a sort of punishment, and I'd really rather avoid that.

I think the reason she's doing it is so she has an "owie" to kiss better. She's very into that, kissing the cracked skin on my thumb, the scab on her knee, everything. And I do thank her for kissing me after she pinches - I think I should stop acknowledging the post-pinching kisses maybe? It's quite frustrating. Do any of you wise mamas have any ideas here? Ignore it, it's a phase, it'll pass?

[DreamsInDigital]

Originally Posted by *Amy*

DiD, Poor punkin Suriya!! That must be really hard. I hope she's feeling better. When is DH's next interview? (PS: are our birthdays one day apart? Mine's the 12th.)

She seems to be better today, the spots went away completely away yesterday but she still is kind of cranky and her cough is still lingering.

We had the birthday talk last year. Yes, our birthdays are one day apart!!!!

Jim had his second interview on Friday. Still no news but we didn't expect to hear anything over the weekend.

:

[flapjack]

Spughy, I'd try talking straight: love the kisses, hate the pinches. I'd also try and interrupt the cycle so that she can't kiss better immediately after she pinches and you can create a teaching opportunity- ow, that hurts.