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2005-06-26 - 11.53pm previous entry next entry
Blinkies, food thoughts, and paper!
Thank you for the messages re. my Flylady discovery!! :) I am in more of a slump with cleaning today (knew it would come) but the motivational emails are helping me. They got me doing another 2 minute Hot Spot Fire Drill and my first 15-minute decluttering time in the current "zone", which - thankfully! - is the living room. The living room is soooo yuck. And since the humid weather, I am disgusted to say that it smells AWFUL in that room. I think it is the carpet. Yeurgh. I soooo need to do something about that. But my sink has not been shined today :( I got dressed and made the beds, but then I needed breakfast and then Arthur needed a nap and he didn't nap well, and so on. But tomorrow I will clean that sink first thing! I did my before bedtime routine this evening :) But I can feel the novelty wearing off.... Need to hang in there and get my house clean! And more importantly, get myself into new habits for the rest of my life.
I have two antibiotic capsules left to take, with breakfast and lunch tomorrow - hooray! Today I feel crappy in my tummy so I'm sure they are starting to get to my gut. Bleurgh. I am glad I finish them tomorrow, because if I am feeling yucky from them, I should think Arthur will start to as well. Last time I was on them (for the womb infection), it was a 7 day course, and Arthur seemed uncomfy and had runny poo by day 5. So I hope he will hang in there and not be bothered by them before I finish the course. He is kind of fussy today, so hmmm. I feel better in my chest today, but I still have a bit of a cough. Getting there though! :)
I have a load of new blinkies on the left there! I love blinkies! I found some more that relate to me and what I am about, so I added them. And replaced a couple with ones I liked better.
Arthur is having a baaad sleep patch again. He wakes at least 2 hourly at night at the moment - less than 2 hours a couple of times last night, urgh! He cries immediately and won't be comforted by anything but the breast. I am going with it as best I can because I don't know if he might have a tummy ache from the antibiotics or something. I will see if he settles during the week. Last night I tried getting my snatches of sleep in the spare room to see if that would help me get better sleep. But I am so tired out today. I felt like I needed a WHOLE night's sleep when I woke up this morning! So tonight I think I will try sleeping the whole night with Arthur. I am pretty sure he will wake very frequently again, as his evening has been even more wakeful than yesterday evening, which is unlike him. If the night is going to be a tough one, I think I might fare better if I only have to roll towards him with my breast and doze while he nurses. I think it will still leave me feeling like I have not had much sleep though. I hope whatever is disturbing him goes soon! He has also been very hard to settle down for sleep the last few days, I don't know why. I find myself getting frustrated or disappointed that we seem back to square one, but I try to keep myself cool about it and remind myself to hang in there because it could just be a blip, or because he's not comfy for a good reason. Plus he needs me, for whatever reason right now. Nobody else will do. Tiring though that is, it is also pretty special :) And he will only be little like this for so long and then it's all over, and he'll never need me like this again. I try to treasure even the exhausting nights when I keep this mindset about it!
I tried Arthur on some mashed potato again a couple of days ago. He wouldn't take it! Oh well. He gagged so much on it that I held the bowl in front of his mouth because it looked like he was going to be sick for sure. He wasn't though.
I have been thinking about his weaning. Mainly because when I went to the doctor about my chest, Arthur sat on my lap while she listened to my chest with the stethoscope (good as gold!), and then she asked me what contraception we were using. I was in a hurry because I had my osteopath appt, and I did not fancy lots of lecturing from my doctor about stuff I was clued up on! I don't know, I guess I just felt it coming. So I said we weren't using any contraception, and thus began the lecture. I don't know why I didn't feel like telling her there was no need to worry about our contraception since the last time we had parsnips was to attempt to induce labour!!! And that I have the libido of a cowpat since Arthur was born. She went on and on about how I could so easily get pregnant again if I wasn't careful. Thinking maybe it would speed up the conversation, I stupidly lied and said my periods weren't back yet. Bad move. Big lecture about how you can get pregnant before your first period after birth. D'oh, I should have known she would say that! But I did not fancy going into all the detail of how my cycles are currently infertile because my luteal phase is too short to support a pregnancy, even if conception took place. I SHOULD have said all that stuff. It would have helped me not feel so much like she thought I knew nothing about getting pregnant. Tsk.
So I said something along the lines of, "Oh right, I'll bear that in mind then!" and tried to escape, but the doctor then started on WHY my periods might not be back yet. She asked if I was still breastfeeding. I said yes. She asked how often, and I told her. She asked how much food Arthur was eating. I said none. Urrrgh. You can probably guess the rest. Apparently I should be CUTTING his breastmilk feeds down to make way for more solids. He is apparently getting TOO MUCH of my milk and therefore isn't hungry enough for solids, which is apparently WRONG. I was running more and more late for my appt and the conversation was making me really annoyed, so I just nodded and smiled a lot, and tried not to engage the doctor on any of it, since I didn't have the time to educate her. She told me I should make an appt to see the Health Visitor URGENTLY about Arthur's weaning. Pfthth. Of course she is talking out of her bottom. Bit rude of me, but it's true. I can't believe a doctor told me that my 7 month old baby should be forced to reduce his breastmilk intake and made to eat food that he isn't interested in yet. That is nutritionally terrible advice for a start. But I am not going to "start". The subject winds me up so much, that I am going to leave it there. I have no intention of seeing my health visitor about it. I know what I'm doing, and what is best for Arthur (for the fifty millionth time!!!!). Tsk.
BUT. I have been thinking about his weaning. I know he does NOT need solids like everyone constantly bangs on about him needing them. Certainly not yet. I know he is thriving on my milk alone and will do for quite a while to come. I am happy with the idea of baby-led weaning, like I said recently. But for whatever reason, I do feel that I would LIKE to see him taking a little more solid food than he currently is, soon. It vexes me (there's a word I haven't used much!) when he gags on purees at an age where he should be fine with even lumpy solid food, developmentally. I wonder if I ought to be exposing him to solids more often, whether or not he takes them? So I have decided that I will make a routine of it, as best I can (being so disorganised!) - every day I will make him a little something at lunchtime, and offer it to him. If he won't take it, that's okay. If he tastes it and hates it, fine. But at least he begins to get the idea that this is lunchtime, and it's when we eat food. I will eat with him too.
Today I started this new plan, and I sat in the kitchen with him in the highchair, and peeled a banana and started to eat it. Of course, he wanted it very much! So I broke off a whole half and handed it to him in one piece. He took it eagerly, but immediately had a moment of "ewwwww Mummy, why did you give me something so MESSY?!!" and dropped it in disgust, opening and closing his fists like he was aghast to have them so slimy and messy! I just left him to it, and after a bit he picked the banana up again. After a few pick-ups and drops, he put it to his mouth, gummed a little piece off it, pushed it around his mouth with his tongue and gums, gagged a little, and swallowed it! Then he did it again :) He gagged such a lot every time he had anything in his mouth, complete with screwed up eyes and shuddering shoulders! I don't know why he is still doing that. But at least he was happy to keep putting it to his mouth, which makes me hope he'll get used to it and stop gagging so much. He is not interested in taking food when I offer it to him (i.e. try to feed him), but he is interested in feeding himself.
After a few little bites and licks, the banana bit got too slimy to keep a good grip on, so I peeled another one and gave him a new piece to hold. I mashed the slimy one right there on the tray, and squirted some breastmilk into it to make it softer. I thought he might like to have banana in two different consistencies to try. He played about with the messy stuff for a long time (after the initial "ewwww, my hands!!" thing again!) and then started tasting his fingers and re-bananaing them and tasting again. I also helped him navigate four or five tiny baby spoon-tip-fuls of banana to his mouth. He gagged a lot but he took a lot of banana down and didn't seem to hate the experience. I hope he will be fine with banana. I figured it was a good one to start with, since he seemed to prefer that to everything else when we were trying purees. So this week I am going to offer him a piece of banana while I eat my lunch every single day. If it goes well and he seems to be getting used to eating, I think I will try him on mashed potato again, or mashed sweet potato for lunch after that. I would have started on mashed sweet potato except that the supermarket were all out of organic ones, and I am not giving Arthur anything that isn't organic.
Also, I thought back to when we first tried him on foods. Banana is the only thing he'll go near. I know that it's quite common for breastfed babies to prefer banana as a first food, because it's sweet and sort of similar to breast milk. But I think maybe Arthur likes it because it's the only thing we used to regularly give him "touch-tastes" of before he was old enough for solids. He used to love it when I put my finger to the gooey bit of my banana, and then to his lips. He would open his mouth to let me put my finger on his tongue, and then make a nice tasting-face, and then grab my finger to suck on it! A lot of his gagging these days seems to me to be more to do with the taste of food, rather than the consistency. It doesn't seem to matter what consistency the food is, he will still gag the moment he can taste it, whatever it is. So I am thinking maybe it would be good to go back to touch-tastes again. Maybe we could give him touch-tastes of whatever we are eating, even stuff we wouldn't let him ingest yet, with no pressure, so that he can get a feel for tastes. That might help him. I don't know, but I think it's worth a try.
I am happy to have an exclusively breastfed 8-month-old, if that's how it goes, but I feel like I would like to make more effort from 8 months, to get him used to eating a bit more. I don't want to force him at all though. I just think I might step up my frequency of offering foods, and just generally make a bit more effort. I have been very relaxed about it so far, and I want to stay relaxed, because it isn't a big stressy deal after all, to get a little baby eating as fast as possible! He is fine the way he is. But I think I will try this new way and see how we go.
Anyway, here are a few photos of Arthur's experience with the banana today! It ended, of course, with banana EVERYWHERE, especially in his hair! So he went in the way-too-small tub that I bought him (which he hardly fit into at all!) on the plastic sheet thingy I am half-way through sewing together, and we washed him down. Neil was very patient trying to get all the banana out of his hair with a washcloth, but he still had a little in there when he bathed with Neil this evening!...
See the new sippy cup I bought him on Friday?! He has had a little breast milk from that today. I read that it's a good time to start offering him some breastmilk in a sippy cup. He was not that thrilled. But I will offer it to him every lunch time with whatever food I give him anyway.
Oh I know what I forgot to tell you last entry! I was making a shopping list on a notepad, and Arthur was being extremely, um, *helpful* (!!), so I tore off a sheet of the notepaper and let him scrunch it while I sat with him making the list. He scrunched and scrunched happily for a while, and then made a funny sound, so I looked up and he was acting sort of gaggy (uh-oh!). When I took the piece of paper from his hands, it looked like this:
Hehe! I should have paid closer attention, or else just not given him a piece of paper when he is eating everything (except for food!). He looked at me and I said, "Open your mouth, Arthur!" and tried to see in. When he opened, I could see a pretty big-looking bit of paper flapping away right at the back of his throat! I reached my finger in there, but he gave me the most disgusted look I ever saw, clamped his mouth shut, and gulped very determinedly, all the while keeping his disapproving gaze on me! When he opened his mouth again, it was clean and empty, and then he shut it again and smiled like he just did something very clever, hehehe! Such a monkey. So I immediately phoned my mum in a flap about whether he would be okay after swallowing a piece of paper, and she said not to be so paranoid, and that the paper was probably digested into nothingness already by now, and that these things happen when you have little ones. Neil keeps worrying that Arthur might have a tummy ache today from swallowing the paper, but I am inclined to think my mum is right. We may see it again in a day or so, or it may be gone for good! ;)
I can't believe this boy is willing to eat ANYTHING, except for food! What a pickle! ;)
Well I think that is all for today. It's very late AGAIN and I need to clean my teeth ready for bed and try to get some sleep before Arthur wakes again. He is the loveliest baby boy. I just love him so much. He is just so soft and squidgy and his hair is the nicest thing I have EVER felt against my face. He smells so gorgeous. I could eat him! He gives cuddles with his arms around us now, and kisses on demand! He mostly gives open-mouthed kisses, but does give pursed-lip ones if I approach him slowly with pursed-lips to show him how! Heh. Also he just giggles and laughs sooooo much. He always did, but it seems he is doing so more than ever now. If Neil is holding him and I fall out of sight behind Neil, Arthur squeals with delight and leans his body right round Neil's shoulder to see me. He loves when I follow them up or down the stairs, and laughs and squeals to see me tagging along behind them! We found a new game this weekend that makes Arthur giggle a lot - again it is one with Neil holding him. I stand over on the other side of the room, or even out of sight around the corner, apparently paying no attention to Arthur. I see him making moves and faces for my attention out of the corner of my eye, and then suddenly I look right at him and make an excited face (wide open eyes and huuuuge open smile, shoulders hunched), and run across the room towards him! He squeals and shrieks with excitement as I get nearer to him, and finally dissolves into helpless giggles when I reach him and plant big kisses on his cheeks :) He's so lovely. I love him gigantastically. He's the most precious thing that ever lived, possibly. And I am so blessed to be his mummy, and to have him as MINE! My lovely precious baby boy.
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