Not fair...

Morning sickness - or rather, morning, noon, and night sickness - and pounding headaches. Granted, I was having this problem last week too, but last week I could blame it on the weather. Now, I've got another 9 months of this, potentially. Yikes! It is definitely going to be a test of wills finishing this dissertation. A toddler, morning sickness and data collection. Wow.

Poor JJ is starting to get so picky about his food too. And not in any predictable pattern either. One day broccoli is the rage. The next, he doesn't even want it on his plate. The power struggle around that is becoming interesting too. He's always game to try something, but once he decided he doesn't want it, he'll pick it up off the plate and drop it on the floor, one piece at a time. John and I have tried telling him "no" firmly, holding his hand to prevent him from doing it, and just plain removing the offending item and he just looks puzzled. Definitely not sure what we're trying to say. Makes me feel stupid - like if I were just a little smarter I could explain it to him. Oh well - maybe Mommy and Daddy will get smarter once we get some more sleep (insert maniacal laughter here).

Valentine's Day dinner

We have a tradition that every Valentine's Day, rather than eating out, we stay home and cook a really amazing meal together.  This works out particularly well since both John and I love to cook.  This year, John grilled a delicious grass-fed T-bone and roasted some yummy rosemary garlic fingerling potatoes.  I made a truffled mushroom ragout and some roasted orange glazed asparagus.  A little boiled shrimp as an appetizer and some purchased creme brulee for dessert - voila!

We've been making a point of giving JJ what we eat so he can participate in dinner and be exposed to the variety of foods that make up the family palate.  The more different and exciting tastes, the less likely that he'll be super pickly later.  At least that's the hope.  So, tonight was no different.  And he absolutely LOVED all of it.  He could not get enough of the mushrooms and ate the asparagus and steak like it was going out of style.  When he got a little bite of the creme brulee, his eyes lit up and he pointed at the spoon and with a most serious tone exclaimed "Dat!"  which, in JJ talk is "I would definitely like some more of that please." And all this after he turned up his nose at the goldfish crackers at daycare on Friday.  That's my boy!

Food glorious food

Over the months, we've progressed to a combination of finger foods and pureed concoctions.  As we approach the one year mark, I find it increasingly difficult to remember the 3-day rule (introduce new foods for 3 days running before introducing any other foods so you can track allergic reactions) since the only "allergies" we've found so far are to persimmons (little pink dots all over him - didn't appear to be uncomfortable, just colorful!) and the Happy Bellies Multi Grain cereal that has quinoa and amaranth in it (he threw it back up - needless to say, that was a "1 day rule" item).   So, it's not like he's having any allergic reactions to, oh, say cheese or steak and it really slows us down in the evenings trying to think about everything that goes into our dinner to see if he can have some (OK...can he have some of my spaghetti?  Did we try garlic and onions yet, or just garlic....)  I never really thought about how complex and multi-ingredient most of our food is.

And now, we're trying to ease him into trying foods at daycare.  If I thought he had a lot of ingredients to contend with before, I was WRONG!  They, of course, have all kinds of preservatives and difficult to pronounce chemicals in their foods and I have to figure out whether I want him to be exposed to any of that (does the 3-day rule apply to micro-crystalline cellulose, disodium inosinate, or partially hydrogenated soybean oil?  and how do you partially hydrogenate a soybean anyway???)

People talk a lot about how difficult it can be to have children - the worrying, the sleep deprivation, etc. - but what they never mention is the constant decision making.  I think that is the most exhausting and challenging part of child rearing - the never-ending cycle of having to make a million tiny decisions for a whole other person.  What should he wear today?  What should he eat?  Is it time for a nap, a diaper, a bath, a book?  Does he need more/less stimulation? Should I give Tylenol, a bottle, or just rock him?  We get exhausted making similar decisions for ourselves all day long - it's not surprising that trying to do it for yourself and someone else is even more taxing.

But I keep reminding myself - it's not forever.  And soon, there's a day coming when I will wish I was still making those decisions for him when he insists on chicken nuggets, day-glo orange pants, and that he doesn't need a bath ever.  So I try to enjoy it while I can :)

Failure to Thrive

We took JJ into the pediatrician today because he seemed a little skinny to us. Sure enough, he hasn't gained any weight since his 4 month appt (he's 5 1/2 months now). The doctor says we need to start supplementing with formula and adding proteins to his solids (ie giving him beans/legumes/etc.) He said that based on the charts, he's officially no longer in the "normal" range which classifies him as failure to thrive. He's grown almost an inch, and he hasn't lost any weight, and he's spot on or ahead for his developmental milestones, so the doc doesn't think he's sick, just not getting enough protein and fat.

I'm so upset. I've tried so so so hard with the breastfeeding and thought we had a good rhythm down and all. I make sure I'm available to feed him every two hours if he wants it, make sure he's having plenty of wet diapers, ... he's getting plenty of volume (10 wet diapers a day, easy)....apparently he's not getting enough protein and fat from the breast milk. The doctor says it's not an uncommon issue. He said that there wasn't anything I could do to fix it and that sometimes women just don't have the right composition, but that just sounds wrong to me somehow. I need to talk to my sister - maybe she's got some good lactation consultant type tips.

Intellectually I know that this isn't my "fault" and that I didn't do anything "wrong". But that doesn't mean I don't feel totally worthless and like I failed some how. I cried for hours after we got home. Poor John did his best to cheer me up, but I guess I just need to get on top of this. I mean, I will do whatever it takes to make sure JJ is happy and healthy. I just wish that "whatever it takes" didn't mean formula. :(

Sweeeeeeet Potatoes

First taste of veggies today - sweet potato! Well, technically, a yam, but either way, JJ was loving it and has the spoon thing down pat.

We decided to make our own baby food, so we had to do a bit more with this one (bananas are just mashable) To prepare it, John baked the yam, pureed it with some water, and froze all the extra in ice cube trays for later. Pretty cool (no brown sugar or marshmellows, before you ask ;)). He made some bannana cubes too so we're starting to get a stock of baby food laid by.

Why make our own baby food? Good question. Our reasons are:

• Cost - baby food is largely water. It is way cheaper to by an extra fruit/veggie/etc., cook it with our own meal without spices/salt, and run it through the blender, than to pay someone else to give us 1/8 as much food for 5 times the price.
• Contents - no preservatives or any fillers in homemade food. We know exactly what is in it.
• Organic - we want to minimize his pesticide exposure at this age.
• Environment - sure the little jars are cute, but that's extra packaging that has to be recycled or buried.

It's really easy for us since we a) love cooking and b)have a chest freezer. For recipes, we've got Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron (pretty good, but she tends to mix opinion and research rather freely - a chronic baby book issue), and I want to get William's Sonoma's Cooking for Baby cookbook - but then, I have a slight addiction to cookbooks...

Yes, we have some bananas...

Since rice cereal is now "old" (the doc said give him new foods 3 times before you try something new), today we started bananas. Mmm Mmm good - JJ thought they were pretty tasty! He still thinks the spoon is a lame delivery mechanism - way too slow. The child has no patience :)

Spoon!!!!!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a successful docking! After reading extensively about giving JJ solids, I anticipated a HUGE struggle with the spoon. Everything is plastered with big warnings to "not get discouraged" and "be patient" and "try again in a few weeks." So we went in armed for bear. Talk about anti-climatic! I tipped the first spoonful of rice gruel up to JJs lips and he slurped it down like a champ. There was no "crying at the unfamiliar sensation" - there was only crying that we ran out of cereal! Then there was crying about the gas later, but that's not the spoon's fault.

Bad mommy...

Ugh. After successfully getting the little jelly bean off to lala land at 8:30 and myself to sleep by 10:30, he woke up SCREAMING at midnight. And not the, gosh-I'm-hungry-please-take-off-your-shirt variety. Oh no. This was the what-have-you-done-to-me-I'm-dying variety. John and I muzzily try to figure out what's wrong - change the diaper? check, burped? check, no hot spikes poking him anywhere? check. I try to feed him as usual and he just wails like this is the cause of all his heartache. John walks him around to calm him while I frantically google what it might be. Could it be the rice cereal?

Well, while the rice cereal probably did give him some wicked gas (which is what it turned out to be by the way), we apparently screwed up giving it to him in the bottle. Now, that's totally unrelated to the extremely stressful (and if you've never had an infant screaming at you in the middle of the night while you try to get your sleep-deprived brain to figure out what's wrong without breaking down crying yourself, you do not know what stressful is) screaming baby incident. According to what I read, giving the baby rice cereal in a bottle is *bad*! Why? Because they don't know the difference between milk and milk+cereal, they end up eating more than they should, forming bad habits which cause them to be obese in later life. Oh, and it also messes up their little digestive systems since you bypass the reflex that keeps them from eating solids until their tummy is ready. I am not making this up. So now I feel even worse than before because I didn't do my homework and find this out before I doomed my child to a life as a fat tub o' lard. Ok, not really, but I still feel bad. Why don't people tell you this stuff???

Introducing Solids

At his 4 month appointment, the doc says we can start introducing solids now. We decided to give him just a little rice cereal in some breast milk in a bottle today at lunch and then again at dinner. When you feed children solids, the doc says you introduce a food three times by itself, watching for adverse reactions. After 3 times, the food is "old" and can be given any time in combination with other old foods.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm thinking "cool! Soon someone else can feed him without me." On the other hand, I'm thinking "crap! Soon someone else can feed him without me." It's a little odd - I really thought I'd be totally pumped. This reluctance is unexpected and a bit disconcerting. He still will be getting his primary nutrition from breast milk, but for how much longer? Sigh. If I'm this bad about introducing solids, what am I going to be like when he goes to school. Yikes!

I'm sure I'll get over it, but today I feel kind of sad.

(maybe I'm just worried about the legendary poo that solids bring... : ) )