Weaning at 12 Months April 30, 2010

Spoiler Warning: This post is about weaning my baby at 12 months, if you’re not interested, feel free to skip it. He’s fine.

The reason I’m writing this post is that before I weaned him, I was so fearful of how to do it. I like to know what something involves before I get started with it, and with this next step in our relationship I was biting nails and agonizing and trying to think about how to wean. If you’re wondering about weaning, this is just a data point of my experience.

Why 12 months? The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for at least one year, and for those of you who know me, I’ve been very interested in doing what I need to do to get an A. (Where’s my A for parenting? I want to know.) My goal with nursing had always been one year even if when people asked, I answered, “We’ll see how it goes.” Babies and toddlers still benefit from nursing beyond one year, I firmly believe, but it wasn’t for me. Here’s why.

Emotional Readiness to Wean:

• I was tired of being the one who did the last 15-20 minutes of bedtime routine. I figured, if we quit now, we can substitute reading associated with bedtime.
• Seamus had started pawing at my shirt, and while I don’t think this is entirely inappropriate behavior for a 12 month old, it annoyed me.
• Mostly, he had gotten uninterested in nursing for food and wanted to nurse for comfort. I realize this makes me sound cold, but it’s important to me that all of the people who take care of him (myself included) develop skills to comfort him that don’t involve sticking food in his mouth.

Physical Readiness to Wean:

• He’s a voracious eater of a variety of foods, so I know he’s getting a nutritionally complete diet now.
• I’m five months pregnant and wanted a break before I nurse another baby for a year. Also my appetite had plummeted since weaning on Monday. I know you can nurse two babies at once, and I nursed Seamus through the early part of this pregnancy. However, I want at least some of the starting out stuff to be equal (and OMG, I’m starting to sound neurotic about this equality, which is surely going to come crashing down as soon as the next baby is born) and I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to nurse Baby 2 beyond Sept. 2011.
• I had been tapering off the nursing by giving him bottles of expressed milk that I had in the freezer, so my body was preparing to ratchet it down and phase it out.

Things I’m Glad about Weaning:

• Patrick has had fun putting Seamus down for the night, and I’m finding it therapeutic to work on cleaning up the kitchen. On the nights I put him to bed, I’m enjoying it more.
• I don’t have to travel with my pump anymore!
• Snuggling with Seamus with my shirt on.
• General sense of peace with decision and types of readiness.

Things I’m Going to Miss about Nursing:

• Lately, he had started laughing with delight right before he nursed. I’m really going to miss that little laugh.
• The clean post-bath baby scalp snuggled up to me.
• Sleeping in by bringing him into bed with us in the morning for the first feeding.

All in all, I feel good about it. I’m not too sad, which I thought I might be, and I’m not too sore, which some reading I had done really freaked me out about!  It really is a question of readiness, any earlier and I would not have been okay with weaning. Any later, and next time around I might pull out my hair. (What I mean by this is that I don’t really feel like my body is mine right now anyway so that when he’s nursing, it’s just more of the same, but next time, I think I’m going to be really really ready to have casa (yes, I feel like a house again, and it’s only 23 weeks) de Leigh back to just me.)

From Teeny to Not April 26, 2010

It’s his birthday, and so here are some pictures:

Newborn Seamus

He had those weird red marks all over him, his fists were always closed, and he was so small!

Now he does things like this!

Taking Apart the Pantry

He still has weird marks, but they’re from doing stuff. And he wants to have a piece of everything–in this case the blender will have to do. (Luckily it’s not running.)

He’s almost tripled his weight (7 lbs 12 oz to 22 lbs) and he’s grown at least 10 inches (19 to 29) in the last year. He’s also fully developed his lungs to screech when he wants (or doesn’t want) something. He still loves a bath, and he still loves to eat. I can’t wait for all the cool stuff he’s going to learn how to do this year! Happy Birthday!

It’s His Birthday! April 26, 2010

I’ll make another post later with a little newborn picture to contrast with where he is now, but I’m not at the computer with pictures on it right now. Yesterday, Patrick and I walked Seamus to Trader Joe’s, and we recalled how last year at that time we were doing the exact same walk and timing my contractions. Only we didn’t have a stroller with us.

We went to five grocery stores yesterday. Trader Joe’s, Costco, Smith’s, Whole Foods, and Sunflower. It was a little cruel to take Seamus in and out of the carseat so much, but we needed different things at each place, and we still forgot some things. For instance, we forgot to buy tortillas at Trader Joe’s so we went to Smith’s only to discover that the tortillas we usually buy there had…PHOs. No tortillas. But the kicker is that we didn’t really use any of the groceries for dinner, as we were still eating up our yummy produce from Los Poblanos last week. We had roasted zucchini, asparagus, sweet potatoes, roasted regular potatoes with garlic, and artichokes. Then strawberries and ice cream for dessert. Seamus ate a little bit, but he must be teething again because he was decidedly uninterested in anything other than banana and cheese and hummus on bread. Usually he wants to try whatever we’re having.

He is listening to us way more now and absorbing what we say. He likes to go in front of something he’s not supposed to play with and stand in front of it, shake his head, and mutter “no, no” all the while inching closer and closer to it. I think it undermines the stance that we take when we think such behaviors are funny. He debuted his summer uniform yesterday with a t-shirt, diaper, and shoes. Not wearing any pants, well, it was like his birthday had come early.

We aren’t doing anything special for Seamus’s birthday, and while I feel a little wierd about letting the day pass, I don’t think I’ll mind it all that much. After all, what I really want to do is drink an entire bottle of champagne for getting through this year, but that wouldn’t be so good for the developing baby, and he’s already going to have to compete with Seamus for resources, so I’d like to start him on as level a playing field as possible, all of which make champagne a bad idea. Or a good idea postponed until Seamus’s second birthday. I might make a cake tomorrow, just so we can take some pictures. It will be an applesauce cake though so as to not get him hooked on the sugar early. He thinks a banana is great for dessert. Sure, it’s a big accomplishment that Seamus has made it a year, and it’s probably selfish to say that the accomplishment is more mine and Patrick’s than his, but a few strategic pictures and he’ll never know the difference, and we won’t have to clean up all his toys in order to make the house presentable.

How does such a small little person end up with more clothes than he can wear? I’ve decided that another boy is necessary just to wear all the clothes that Seamus has. With the difference in seasons of their birth, I think the outfits will be in rotation will wear evenly.

And as for my rock climbing skills, they are coming along. My class went out on Saturday to a very fun area where I climbed a couple of chimneys and a crack and up and over a cave. I may not be elegant, and getting even less so, and my knees and shins may be black and blue, but being outside and climbing up the different terrain is so much fun!

Blogging = Productivity April 23, 2010

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon with this blog. I get more prolific in my blog posts when work on my dissertation is going well. I guess writing does actually beget more writing.

This week, I did course evaluations in one of my classes. There’s a fine line between ethically pointing out the learning objectives on the syllabus and pointing them out on the evaluation. I’m never surprised (anymore) when students complain about the reading and writing load in my classes. I’ve always had the suspicion that more writing is good because it’s good practice, but if I can find the line between overkill (of both them and me–who has to read their papers) and productive practice, they benefit from having a variety of writing assignments. I benefit from reading their interesting ideas about the literature.

I’m looking forward to my class’s creative presentations during finals week. This is an idea I blatantly stole from one of my professors, but I love it. The last day of class students get to present their own work on how they have creatively engaged with one of the texts from the class. I’ve seen some excellent ones and some that weren’t as good. But in one class, students made a game out of The Yellow Wallpaper. In the same class, two students cooked all the recipes out of So Far From God. Another student gave a dramatic interpretation of “The Arrival of the Bee Box.” The class I have right now has students who are very engaged with the texts, and I’ve already heard some great ideas from them.

My other class enjoyed a guest speaker last night. Sandra from Enlace Comunitario came to speak about culturally appropriate ways of assisting domestic violence survivors. Most students were very interested because she was speaking from the trenches of the theoretical work we’ve been talking about in class. Probably too, they were relieved to have a different voice/person at the front of the room for an hour.

Two more weeks until finals week. I have two more chapters to revise and an introduction to write before then. Luckily things are going well. The revisions, which I had built up in my head to be massive, are fairly minor and are visibly improving the chapters.

Turning One April 21, 2010

Several years ago, I was driving from Oregon to Kentucky. It was December and by some wildly misguided logic, I decided to drive through Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. I hate driving in snow, especially blizzards, especially whiteouts that require chains, which I had but wasn’t sure how to put on. The girl I was caravaning with through to Denver did know how and she mostly did it. We split up in Denver, and when I couldn’t get in touch with the person I was supposed to be staying with in Denver, I decided to drive on. It was only 11:00 pm and I was only 18 hours from Franklin. You see where this is going. Sure, Denver was clear. It was a city, in a valley relative to the mountains to the West and the high plains to the East.

I went on. About 40 miles outside of Denver, it got really nasty. I was desperately following semis trying to stay in the grooves where they were cutting up the snow with their chains. (I had removed mine to drive through Denver.) At Limon, CO, I decided to call it a night, mostly because the worker at the convenience store I stopped at for gas and coffee said that the authorities were going to shut down the interstate for the night. I slept in the car, waking up when I got cold to turn the heat on for a few minutes. This sounds crazy, but it wasn’t because I had the car all loaded up with everything I owned to move back to Kentucky.

The next morning, I went back into the convenience store and asked about the roads. They said, “Well, it’s still pretty messy and icey but once you get to the Kansas border, you’ll be fine.” I left. Along the way, I saw multiple cars off the road. I clutched the steering wheel muttering to myself only 80 miles to the Kansas border, only x miles to the Kansas border. When I got to the Kansas border, it was better, but there were still patches of ice and it was still frightening. I wondered who had deluded me into thinking all would be well and easy at the Kansas border.

And this is how I feel about Seamus turning one. I feel like magically, overnight, he’s going to be able to do all the things one year olds do, like talk to me a little more, walk, indicate when he needs to go, and so much more. But then, I think, it’s like the Kansas border. It will be better but we’re not past all the potential skidding off the road possible, and he is learning to throw tantrums (I think this is a little early in his development; Patrick thinks it’s a by-product of daycare).

Even if turning one doesn’t mean big changes, it does mean we all survived a year together. He still has four more days of acting like a baby if he wants to.

Seamus’s First Trip to the Zoo April 21, 2010

Today, my friend Chris and his baby Naomi came over, like they do every Tuesday. We were all having breakfast when Chris asked when I wanted to go to the zoo. He and his wife recently joined as a couples membership and they’ve been taking Naomi whenever the mood strikes. I said, “Let’s go today!” So we loaded up in our car, with our two carseats and took the babies to the zoo.

The first exhibit is the flamingo exhibit. In Albuquerque they have to put some special kind of dye in the water to make the flamingos pink because they’re not getting enough pigment from the food they eat. Seamus thought they were pretty cool. Then we went to the monkeys, which he really got into. I think he recognized them as cousins. Or maybe it was because I dressed him in a monkey outfit for the zoo.

Seamus and Naomi

The howler monkeys had a baby. A group of Spanish speaking young people were walking near us and started talking about the changito, and I was once again reminded about all the different words there are. You see, I had been telling Seamus they were monkeys/monos–another word for monkey.

Then we walked through the big cats area. Both babies were intensely interested in the ocelot and at the tiger pen, I picked Seamus up out of his stroller so he could see. The tigers kind of got into it–one needing to reassert his dominance over the other. They scuffled and the bigger tiger took over the smaller tiger’s primo seat in the shade. Then they didn’t move for a long time. Seamus thought the talking tigers were fascinating.

After all that excitement, he fell asleep before we got to the giraffes, elephants, and gorillas. Next time. There will be a next time because I cannot deny him the fun times he was having today. He put off his nap for as long as he could because he was enthralled with all the animals and their antics.

Would you like to see a picture of a very smiley baby? (Who is almost one and therefore not a baby but a soon to be little boy!)

So Happy

It’s a Boy, and Not the Post I Thought I’d Be Writing April 21, 2010

On Monday Patrick and I went to my 20 week ultrasound appointment. I thought, “Sure we’ll find out if it’s a boy or a girl” but I was so sure it was a girl that I figured they’d just confirm that feeling. After all, I’d been more nauseated, the Chinese Gender Predictor said girl, the heartbeat was really fast, and I was below prepregnancy weight (fyi, there is a study that shows that a woman is more likely to have a boy if she is still carrying weight from the first pregnancy). Clearly, this baby was a girl. That’s what I thought until the ultrasound tech started waving the wand around; once I got oriented, I could see the head and then the legs and then between the legs…and I thought, “No, surely not.” A loong while later, she asked if we wanted to know. And my eyes were right.

The reason this isn’t the post I thought I’d be writing is that I was going to write about how the developing baby is female and how although that doesn’t mean anything really, we were excited to have a girl on the way. Now I don’t know what to write. It doesn’t matter and we’re excited to have a boy on the way. We do have a good name for him, he’ll never need new clothes unless he gets bigger than Seamus quickly, and won’t it be fun for them to have a brother? Yes, I know all this, but I’m still adjusting to the fact that my family is not going to look like I thought. And YES, I know. I’m grateful the baby is healthy and everything looks fine.

So a boy. Somebody has to raise them. Might as well be us.

Seattle: AKA The Last Travel Post April 16, 2010

Back from Seattle and NACCS–the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies Conference. What a trip. It was fun because I got to go with a friend again and we seem to still be getting along really well, even after going to San Antonio and Seattle. Even had some withdrawal from each other. We stayed with her grandmother on Bainbridge Island. Her grandmother is quite the character. She makes it her business to stay healthy and get around. In my book, anyone over 80 still walking and talking on a roll is envy worthy!

To start, we had five modes of transportation in one day. A car to the airport, a plane to the light rail, the train to downtown, our feet to the ferry, and the boat to the island. Riding the ferry reminded me of what I liked so much about Seattle when I visited as a kid. The pushy folks from the Socialist Workers Press reminded me of what irritated me about the Pacific Northwest when I was in college. Am I a conservative? The horror, the horror.

The conference was really productive; we saw some really interesting, engaging intellectual panels, and our papers were both well received with thoughtful questions. Some really interesting (and sad) stuff on the South Central Farm in LA and its sale to developers by the city council.

Then I got to spend a delightful couple of days with my friends ML and Dustin in Seattle. We walked around the lake, ate some ice cream, and in a classic ML move, there was cake waiting for me when I arrived. Delicious! I’m so happy for them, getting ready to move to the next stage of their lives as professors at the University of Arkansas. We’re going to have a goat coop, that is if I get a job and move there too…

Patrick’s been in Dallas for his new job. This school (the NexGen schools) sounds amazing and his team is shaping up. Nothing like having a partner who’s enjoying his work too.

Seamus is taking steps, and today, he braved three steps for an empty water bottle. Those of you who remember, that was what motivated him to crawl at first too. I don’t get it.

Next week’s blog posts are going to be awesome. Come back for more.

Things I Can’t Say April 5, 2010

Last week, I taught My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki to my Women and Cultural Violence class. It’s one of my favorites–funny, sad, irreverent, thought-provoking. In the novel, the front piece for each chapter is a list from The Pillow Book by Shonagon written in the eleventh century Japan. These include: Disappointing Things, Things that Give an Unclean Feeling, Delightful Things, etc. So while I’ve titled this post, “Things I Can’t Say” it might actually not be that, since I’m thinking about that book.

And since there are so many things I can’t say, so as not to appear whiny, ungrateful, and worse, I might have to talk about Seamus today. He’s funny. He loves walking around holding on to your hands. Sometimes he’s brave enough to just hold one hand. Somebody sent us some toys, stacking cups and a hammer bench (but we don’t know who this person was since there was no name on the box; if it was you, let me know), and he’s in love with the stacking cups, banging different sizes together to hear the different sounds, putting them in one cup and taking them out, strewing them around the room, and more. He’s started laying himself out on the floor on his stomach when he gets tired. He comes in fast and insistent for a hug. He crams strawberries in his mouth like there’s no tomorrow.

We met some new family this weekend. Patrick’s aunt and her new (to us anyway, but I think they’ve been married for four years) husband were visiting his folks in Las Cruces so we all met in Socorro. We hung out at the NM Technical Institute which has a beautiful shady breezy campus. We hit up the Smith’s on the way out of town for its restrooms. I was not inspired when Patrick told me that the men’s smelled like alcohol vomit. With my sensitive nose and overactive gag reflex, I was worried. I was even more worried when I walked in and the entire store smelled like rotisseire chicken. (This smell drives me crazy, and it’s why I used to drive two and a half miles farther away to shop at the Smith’s that didn’t smell this way. But just so you know, everybody I tell this to thinks I’m nuts.) Imagine my delight when the women’s smelled clean and actually was! The customer service manager even opened up a special lane for me to check out with my lemonade.

Is this post banal enough for you? I told you there were things I can’t say. So you get the things I can. Or this all may be a by-product of reading and teaching The Adventures of Don Chipote by Daniel Venegas, which is full of scatological humor. I can think of nothing else. I do hope my students appreciate that humor from the 1920s. For example on the first page, “All of nature had entered into a state of respite, except for Don Chipote, who, completely worn out from the daily grind, continued to poke at an ox’s ass. So obliged by his numerous progeny, he was forced to bring up the rear of his horny beast, occasionally sucking in the consoling little emanations from the animal’s posterior duct.” You’re welcome.