You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

Every December since I've been an adult I have to fight to keep the grinch inside me at bay.  I try to remember the real reason that we celebrate Christmas, because most of the things that we do (exchanging gifts, eating junk, decorating) have nothing to do with the real purpose.  What I do enjoy about Christmas is getting together with family and friends.  I am almost finished with the part of Christmas I hate most: shopping.  Then I will follow that up with the part I hate second most: wrapping.  Hopefully I can get this all done by Saturday without losing too much sleep.  As if this is how Jesus wants us to celebrate his birthday.

So we had a rough time with sleep ever since Emmett turned one.  He started waking up at night again, usually just once but sometimes twice a night.  We are not sure why.  It could have been any number of things: being away from home for 4 nights over Thanksgiving, having a cold shortly after, then getting shots, all in the course of less than 2 weeks.  But, knock on wood, he has slept through the night 4 nights in a row now.  He doesn't always fall asleep easily either.  A few times he fussed and cried so much while I was attempting to rock him that I had to just put him in the crib and leave.  He did go to sleep on his own those nights without too much trouble.  But I still prefer to rock him to sleep and then lay him down so that I know he is asleep.  I hate the waiting and listening and worrying that he isn't going to go to sleep on his own.  He still naps like a champ, one in the morning and one in the afternoon for between 1.5 and 2 hours each.  He shows no signs of giving up his morning nap, and that's fine with me.  I like having that time to myself every day.

Emmett is getting quite good on his feet.  Sometime he walks around the living room fast enough that I could almost call it running.  He still falls sometimes, but not nearly as much as he used to.  He's getting used to walking in shoes too.  On warmer days we go outside in the afternoons and just walk around for a little while.  He walks up and down the drive way and we go down the sidwalk a ways.  He always gets sidetracked and wants to go up other people's driveways and in their yards and out into the street.  Luckily we live near the far end of our neighborhood where there's almost no traffic so I don't have to worry.  I am always right there with him anyway, trying to make sure he doesn't faceplant on the pavement.  He loves being outside.  Poor kid was born the wrong time of year.  As soon as he learns to walk its too cold to play outside most days.

He's not saying too many words yet.  He will say "Mamamama" when he wants me to pick him up or pull him up on the couch with me.  And he says "Dadadada" when Chris gets home every evening.  Of course whenever he says "Mama" it sounds like whining but when he says "Dada" it sounds happy.  We got him to say "Go go go" a while back but he won't do it anymore.  He babbles all the time though, using all kinds of different sounds that I'm sure make sense to him.  I just talk right back to him as if I totally understand every word.  I'm working on teaching him body parts, but its not taking just yet.  However, if I hold up a sock, he holds his foot out.  When I put one of his arms through his sleeve, he immediately moves whatever is in his hand to the other hand so I can do the other sleeve.  And when I hold his coat out he will put his arm through the first sleeve and then reach behind him for the second sleeve.  All that is really helpful, so who cares if he doesn't know where his nose is, right?

Despite the grinchiness, I'm still excited about watching Emmett open his presents this year.  He did a pretty good job of ripping and tearing open his birthday presents so I'm sure he will know what to do with his Christmas presents.  Last year he was only a few weeks old at Christmas.  He was sleeping for about 3 or 4 hour stretches then, so I think he got up around 7:00 after his 3:00 or 4:00 AM feeding.  We took him downstairs and started pulling presents out of his stocking.  After about 30 minutes he fell asleep.  So Chris and I opened our presents to each other until he woke up so he could finish his.  He mostly stared blankly at us and smiled a few times.  Its amazing how far he's come since then.

Here he is Christmas morning 2009 with his stocking stuffers.

And here he is in his Christmas outfit just after arriving at his Nana and PawPaws' house.

   

Breastfeeding - see, I'm warning you in the title

The one year mark is a pretty big milestone.  A lot of things can change at this point.  Babies can start drinking the moo juice and eat foods made with milk after one year.  Leading up to his birthday I thought a lot about weaning.  I was really having a difficult time deciding if I wanted to wean or not. 

As you probably already know, Emmett was born by c-section and spent his first 4 days in the NICU.  For the first 2 days he was under an oxygen hood and was fed only through his IV.  By the time I was finally able to hold him and attempt to start breastfeeding we were already behind in the game.  NICU babies are significantly less likely to be breastfed due to their difficult beginnings.  We worked with the lactation consultant who specialized in NICU babies to try and get things going, but I had no milk yet (which is common for mothers who are induced, as I was) and he couldn't figure out how to latch on (a bad combination because he has no motivation to learn to latch when he's not getting any milk).  We tried everything.  We tried a nipple shield.  We tried a nipple shield with a really small tube run underneath it pumping formula into it with a syringe.  We tried just squirting formula onto me and into his mouth whenever he tried to suck.  And even with the nursing pillow, the baby would put weight on my incision and it burned and stung badly.  Every 3 hours we would try until Emmett and I were both frustrated and crying.  Then we would end up feeding him formula out of a bottle with a spoon or cup sort of thing that was basically pouring it in his mouth so that he won't get spoiled by a bottle.  Then I would go back to my room and pump and pump and get nothing but the tiniest bit of colostrum. 

He was born on a Monday night and I was discharged on Thursday.  Since E was still in the NICU we stayed in one of the parenting rooms Thursday night so we could be near him.  That night we set our alarm to wake us up every 3 hours to go and feed him.  That was one of the longest nights of my life.  Still no milk, and I was close to giving up.  By Friday morning we were moved out of the NICU and into a room in peds.  The lactation consultant came every 3 hours during the day to help us keep working on breastfeeding.  Each time we would try until we were all frustrated and then Chris would give him a bottle of forumla because he wasn't getting enough to eat with the cup.  I couldn't give him a bottle because we didn't want him to think he could just get a bottle from me when nursing didn't work, at least that's what the LC said.  Friday night we got up every 3 hours to give E a bottle and for me to pump.  I didn't have the energy to try nursing in the middle of the night, but I was finally starting to get some milk when I pumped.  By Saturday I was pumping enough milk that we were able to get him off forumla and at least give him breastmilk in a bottle.  I was actually pretty satisfied with that and began to think that I didn't care if he ever learned to latch on as long as he was drinking breastmilk.  The LC was off for the weekend so we just worked on it ourselves Saturday and Sunday.  That made it a little less stressful because we just tried for maybe 15 minutes each feeding and when he still couldn't latch I would pump and Chris would give him a bottle. 

On Monday morning before the LC was in we tried as usual to get him to latch with the nipple shield.  For some reason, I don't know why, he latched on and drank for maybe 2 minutes straight!  It was such a relief.  After that we continued to work on it and he got to the point where he could sufficiently nurse as long as we used the nipple shield.  By the time we left the hospital on Thursday I was feeling very confident about breastfeeding.  It continued to go well after we got home and we settled into a good routine.

When Emmett was about a month old I decided that I was tired of using the nipple shield.  I always had to worry about forgetting it if we went out anywhere and it was messy.  So I made an effort to get him to latch on without it.  After a few days of failure I made an appointment to go into the hospital and meet with another lactation consultant.  I couldn't get in to see the same LC we had before, but the one I saw was very helpful.  We also weighed him before nursing and after nursing to see how many ounces he was drinking and we found out that he was getting plenty to eat.  She also helped me with positioning so that he could latch better.  I was amazed by how much faster he ate once we could do it without the nipple shield. 

After that we were consistently nursing the proper way.  We only had a few hiccups in the first year of his life.  We had some issues with biting a few different times.  E got teeth early, his first one at 3 months, but he never bit me until he was about 5 months old.  He seems to only bite me when he's teething.  When he was about 7 months old my supply dropped for some reason and we had issues with let down.  My milk wouldn't let down and he wasn't patient enough to wait for it, especially when he was tired.  I began to worry that he was self weaning then.  I used to have to pump the milk down for him so that he would nurse.  I spoke to another LC over the phone and learned some techniques to help with let down.  We got past all of these hurdles and he is still nursing now.

I took many things into consideration when making my decision about whether or not to keep breastfeeding after the one year mark.  First of all, as you just read, breastfeeding was a long journey for us, and after working so hard to get it down its hard to just give it up.  The doctor actually encouraged me to keep breastfeeding when I took E in for his one year check up.  And it is cold and flu season so the added benefits to the immune system could be crucial.  I did not get E the flu shot, mostly because he doesn't go to daycare, and the doctor was in agreement with that.  However, sometimes breastfeeding is inconvenient.  It give me less flexibility as far as being away from E.  And I HATE pumping.  I'm also ready to give up nursing bras.  I am not ready to give up the boost to my metabolism though.  I haven't been at this weight since I had jaw surgery in college and had my jaw wired shut for a month.  I miss my curves a bit, but I think this is a healthier weight for me.   And part of me is not ready to give up the bonding time.  So in the end I have decided to keep breastfeeding, but be more flexible about it.  On normal days when we're home I will nurse him on the same schedule I have been.  But if something comes up that I have to be gone over one of the times when he would normally nurse, he can drink whole milk from his sippy cup.  So far its working just fine.  I'm not sure now how much longer we will go.  Right now I say there is no way he will reach the age of 2 still nursing.  But that's the most I will committ to at this point.

How do you measure a year?

In feedings, in diapers, in teardrops, in sleepless nights, 

In first steps, in first words, in laughter, in hugs and kisses...


Now that the final birthday festivities have come to a close, I am ready to post some of my thoughts about my baby boy's first birthday.  The first of his birthday parties was at my parents' house over Thanksgiving weekend.  My brother and sister-in-law and Emmett's cousins Philip (3) and Gabriel (18 mos) were there to celebrate with him.  Poor Gabriel was sick and ended up going to bed early before we had cake.  I made E a yellow double layer cake with white frosting.  I wrote "Happy 1st Birthday Emmett" on the top with red sparkly icing.  He had a candle on top shaped like a number one.  We sang Happy Birthday and tried to get him to blow out the candle, but he didn't understand what to do.  He just looked at us like, "what do you want me to do?"  We gave him a piece of cake to destroy, and he made plenty of mess out of that, smearing it all over his face and in his hair.  He tried ice cream for the first time and made an awful face because it was cold.  But he kept opening up for more and more bites so he must have liked it anyway.  He did a pretty good job of ripping into his presents.  He got a wood train made of blocks that can be rearranged, a nice set of wood building blocks, and some clothes and pajamas and some board books.  I love wood toys.  They inspire imagination.  He loves his train.  He's really good at taking the blocks apart, but not as good at putting them back together.  We're working on that.  Overall his first party went very well.  Here are some pictures from the first party:

Here is the cake I made for him.

And here he is smearing it in his face and hair.

Cousin Philip helped him open his presents.

On his actual birthday on the 30th Chris took the day off work.  I made blueberry muffins for breakfast and Emmett seemed to really like them.  Here is a picture of him eating his:

We got him a hand carved wooden train and the Fisher Price Spinnin' Sounds Speedway.  The Speedway was definitely a hit.  When you run a car down the ramp and onto the racetrack it spins the cars around and spits them out the other side.  Here is a picture of him playing with it:

As the day went on he tried throwing just about every toy he has in there just to watch them spin around.  And eventually he tried this:

However, it was not strong enough to spin him around. 

We took him to the mall to play in the indoor playground in the afternoon.  That is truly his favorite thing to do and we knew that was how he would choose to spend his birthday if he could tell us what he wanted.  Really just having Daddy home on a random Tuesday was special enough for him.  On Wednesday morning when I went in to get him he kept looking around me to see if Daddy was there too.  It made me sad.  I wish there was some way Chris and I could share his job so that some days he goes into work and other days I do so that he could spend just as much time with Emmett.  The corporate world does not do enough to give fathers more time with their children, and they also need to make it easier for mothers to work and take care of their children.  This is something I get on my soap box about all the time.  But I will rant about that another day. 

We finished off Emmett's birthday by going out to eat at a new Italian restaurant near our house that we had been itching to try.  Even though Emmett couldn't really appreciate the food, he just loves being out in public so he can people watch.  He was fascinated by an older boy at the table next to us.  He LOVES big kids.  I gave him some of my pasta to try, but he wasn't impressed.  He tried one and threw the rest on the floor.  I wish I knew how to get him to stop throwing food on the floor.  But how do you discipline a one year old?

When I rocked him to sleep that night I sang him all the songs that I've been singing to him since he was a newborn in the hospital.  I held him for a really long time, not wanting to put him down as if he was going to turn into a big boy overnight.  I finally forced myself to lay him down and leave the room.  I went to my bed and just collapsed in tears.  I cried out all the feelings I had been holding in for so long.  And when I was done, I was ok with it all.  And I have been ok ever since.  I am glad for the past year that I spent with my baby boy, and I can't wait for all the excitement of the year to come. 

So birthday party number two was this past Saturday at Chris's parents' house.  He did a pretty good job of ripping into his presents again this time, maybe even better now that he's had some practice.  He got some cute clothes and some neat toys.  He got a caterpillar pull toy that talks and teaches letters and counting, a mail cart push toy, some clear balls with cool moving designs inside them, and some new Chuck trucks to add to his collection.  Here he is playing with his mail cart:

His Nana and Paw Paw got him his very own cake to destroy:

He made a royal mess out of it, smearing it all over his face and hair and all over Nana's table:

Even his poop was blue the next day.  We had to stick him directly in the tub after that.  But he obviously had a great time, and so did we.

So that concludes the birthday recap.  There are other topics of business to discuss regarding one year olds, but this post is long enough so I will save those for later.  Oh and Emmett had a great First Thanksgiving as well, I forgot to mention.  Unfortunately for him, the Thanksgiving holiday will be more about his birthday since it falls so close.  He ate some turkey and some mashed potatoes and seemed to enjoy it.  Yum!