Feeding Fiasco's

So far Leah is a little less than keen on solid foods. I've tried several times to offer her carrots or bananas or sweet potato, and she is not amused. She picks it up and squishes it in her hands and then drops it. Either on the floor, or in her lap, or in a crevice that I cannot possibly get to without disassembling her highchair. I also bought those Fresh Food Feeders, and the only time she was interested was on a really hot day while she was teething. But I totally love the concept of them, and just want her to comply dammit!


I forgot to follow up here on it, but she is doing really well with the sippy cup while my MIL is with her. Some days she still isn't eating as much as she should, but she does so well with feeding herself and it's still more milk than she was drinking while refusing the bottles, so I call it a win. 


Nursing however is getting a little more difficult. She is SO alert now that she gets distracted very easily and turns her head away from me with my nipple still in her mouth. Which sucks even MORE when I have a blister on said nipple. I literally have to bite my lip in order to not cry out in pain. It's hard to get mad though when she smashes my nipple in between her gums because she's smiling at me. That is almost unbearably cute. She is also doing this new thing where she puts one hand against my boob, while arching her back and pulling her face away from me all while (Let's say it together, class) ALL WHILE MY NIPPLE IS STILL IN HER MOUTH. I'm afraid one of these days I'll open my nursing bra to find that my nipples have absconded to the nearest American Consulate or La Leche League meeting place for salvation. Poor little things are taking a beating...


I keep telling myself to be patient, and that she will come around to eating food more regularly and easily. Maybe it's just because I am such an overachiever with eating that I wanted a child after my own heart. When really I should just keep trying and not worry, and also probably start Weig.ht Watc.hers again very, very soon. 


Any tips out there, Moms?

Seven Months

Dearest Leah,

This past month has brought mammoth change and acceleration to your abilities, and obviously a lot of firsts. You’re sort of eating food and drinking like a champ from a sippy cup, which is remarkably exciting to see but it makes me sad and feeling like you’re two shakes from telling me about the great apartment you found and the tattoo you’ve been hiding for the last few weeks. It’s hard not to feel like time is running away with you already.

Let’s start with your hands. You have suddenly discovered your hands and will spend several minutes flipping them palm up, palm down, palm up, palm down, while staring intently. Your thumb has become an integral role in self-soothing and an aide in your falling asleep. But the cutest part is that you HAVE TO have some piece of fabric in your little hand to hold up close to your face while you suck your thumb. So when I swaddle you I pull a portion of the blanket up to your face before I wrap the rest around your body. Man, I love that.

You, my love, are also a ROCK STAR when it comes to sleep. It’s easy to tell when you are getting tired, you start to whine just a smidge and I immediately scoop you up, wrap you in your swaddle – both arms out now that you are rolling over in your sleep – and then set you in the bed with your sound machine. You cry for half a second then grab your blankey and your thumb and roll right over. I feel like a jerk telling people about this, because I know plenty of moms who are pleading with the universe to get their babies to just sleep for a six hour stretch. And you sleep about an average of 12 hours STRAIGHT each night. I think it helps also that I got you some darker curtains, and a blackout shade for the side that faces East. And also, they’re purple; which serves as the first gender specific item I have bought for your room.  (Everything was neutral since we didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl before you were born)

Swimming. You went swimming for the first time this month and you did so great. You seemed a little suspicious of the water at first, but then again you seem suspicious of a lot of things. New people, your reflection, sweet potatoes... As we waded along together in the pool, you just seem mostly content. And I couldn't help but smile ear to ear about it. Your dad and I decided to splurge a bit and enroll in weekly Parent & Me swim classes. They start next month and I am SO excited!

Food stuff is not going as well as I'd hoped and warrants a post of it's own in the coming future. But I know you'll get better about it. Eventually. 

I think you're starting to figure out that crying gets you stuff. And whining will at the very least get my attention. That feels like a one way street to attachment parenting, whether I like it or not. Good thing I do. When you're tired or teething or not just feeling well you turn into my very own little barnacle and go with me EVERYWHERE in the house. And you hate it when I sit down. I have to be walking around  holding you. It's like you already know how lazy I am, and your dad has bribed you into keeping me busy all the time. I wish my back wasn't so lame, because I would do it much more willingly. But the stabby pains unfortunately overrule even you. 

So my love, things are pretty much fantastic with you. And I am loving every single second of parenthood. Every day with you is more amazing than I ever could have imagined. Thank you for that. 

Can't wait to see what the next month brings.

Love,

Momma

TRIUMPH!

I know it's early, but I think I may have found a solution to Leah's bottle defiance.


Allow me to introduce: 

The Sippy Cup.

Let me start with a little background. As you may know, I have not yet started Leah on solids. Dr. Pediatrician (Leah's Pediatrician, further known as Dr. P) recommends that she be able to sit up a little better on her own before we start anything. I have mentioned before that Leah is long and lean, which makes balancing pretty tricky for her. I am also in the midst of researching the Baby Led Weaning method for feeding. It's a british concept, and their definition of weaning is different than the american definition. The British term means " to add complimentary food". "Baby Led Weaning, quite simply, means letting your child feed themselves from the very start..." 


My understanding of the concept is to skip puree's and spoon feeding and start your baby on pieces of very soft foods that they can feed to themselves i.e. slice of cooked sweet potato, slice of avocado. I believe it stems from the fact that they used to feed babies rice cereal and purees at a much earlier age. Before babies have the natural inclination to put things - anything into their mouth. So spoon feeding was absolutely necessary. I will say that Leah has been putting EVERYTHING in her mouth for about the last month and a half. And an interesting little tidbit; she stopped taking her bottle and pacifiers about a week after she discovered her thumb.

Exhibit A

A couple of the pro's to the BLW method is that it helps baby develop their motor skills, they eat with the family because they can feed themselves; no else has to feed them. Which helps to avoid the food wars that can evolve from Mom and Dad being in control. Baby eats however much or little he or she wants. Breast milk and/or formula will still be their main source of nutrition. Check it out, it seems pretty neat. I had heard of it before, but reading Josey's experience peaked my interest. 


To tie that all together I started to wonder with the BLW concept, if Leah might just do better feeding herself milk. We tried different bottles, and different nipples, and different positions, and different milk temperatures, but none of that worked.We use the glass bottles, so I knew that was kind of out of the question. I started researching sippy cups for beginners. I really prefer the concept of glass or stainless steel, but the only stainless steel sippy's they had for beginners, did not get great reviews.


So I sat down on the floor with my legs open, and put her in between sitting the same way, but allowing her to lean on me for support. I put the sippy in front of her and let her decide what to do. She immediately picked it up and put the mouth piece in her mouth. Now, it was still completely level so she wasn't getting any milk. She just sat there and gnawed on it a little bit. I gave her a few minutes then I slowly guided the cup up in the air to help her get a little milk. It caught her a bit off guard the first time and she coughed a little, but she got it right away after that. The flow is super slow and requires suction or pressure on the mouthpiece to get any out, so I feel very comfortable giving to her to handle. 

I would basically let her explore it and do it her self with just the tiniest direction. 

And within ten minutes of the second day with the cup she was like JLO rockin the mic one handed. 

And after that she was all: What are you still doing here? I got this, fool! 
(Please excuse my pastey, pastey white legs)

So the test will be tomorrow, when she is home with my MIL. Hopefully she can maintain and hone this new skill. And finally get back to eating while I'm at work. Oh, and I think I'm going to start her on Sweet Potatoes this weekend. Woo hoo!

But Can It Be Done?

Brian and I have always talked about the possibility of me being a stay at home mom. We were never quite sure we could afford it, and Health Insurance in particular was always a concern. Before Brian became a small business owner in the summer of 2009, he typically worked for smaller establishments, where as I worked for more substantial companies who offered Health Benefits for the two of us. So last year when we took a leap of faith and plunged head first into significant debt for our IVF cycle, we acknowledged that would make me staying at home even less of a possibility. I understood it then, but I think I was partially in denial about how difficult it would actually be for me emotionally. And once I had our baby girl in my arms it became crystal-fucking-clear how much staying at home with her meant. 

Back in March when we knew my return to work was imminent and I was having daily meltdowns and constant nightmares about leaving Leah, we began to discuss how we could make it happen.  But it started to feel almost impossible when I realized how much debt we had. I knew I had to start with our budget. Okay, time to cut back on organic products. That, and shopping around will help with our grocery bill. I also started to shop at Costco for perishables with a girlfriend. I never used to buy their produce because I couldn’t get through it before it went bad. But now we split the food and the cost! Cable. Okay, this is where I demonstrate my complete lack of will power. I love TV. TV is my third favorite thing behind Brian and Leah. So I mentioned cutting this out of our budget before, but have yet to act on it. I’ll admit it, I was waiting for May sweeps and all of my current shows to end before axing my lifeline to tasteless entertainment. But I’m going to do it! I swear! 

Our debt is where I’ve made some real progress. I belong to a Credit Union. My credit union sent out an advertisement for consolidating credit card debt into one personal loan. I only had one credit card with a balance but I was intrigued by their 8.99% interest claim. So I went in to meet with a representative… This is where I’m going to give you the short version of the story, because while I was typing the long version I fell asleep and woke up a week later with ASDFG permanently imprinted on my cheek. 

Ready? 

Did you know you can leverage the equity in your car to refinance your current car loan? Neither did I, and it bears an off-puttingly similar stink to the ridonkulous ARM’s and psuedo secured Sub-Prime Mortgages that the banks created which got this country in the economic state that it’s in right now to begin with. 

So I totally Applied! 

And I got approved! 

I was paying 13.24% on the balance on my credit card. And 5% on my car loan. They used the equity on my car to pay off my credit card and transferred the balance on to my car loan. Since this would be a car loan and not personal loan, I qualified for a much lower rate based on my credit score and history with the bank. And they were offering an additional 1% discount if you set up an automatic payment from your checking or savings. So now instead of paying 18.24% for the both of them every month. 

I. 


Am. 


Paying. 

Drumroll please. 

2.67% 

TOTAL.

Which saves me close to $300 per month on interest alone. THREE HUNDRED Extra dollars per month that I can now put toward my cable addiction paying off our new loan!!! P.S. I have 60 months to pay it off, which will happen if I continue to only do the minimum payments...

There was a very long period of time where the only debt Brian and I had was our mortgage. And it's amazing how differently you view your credit card when there is no balance on it. When we had a large balance I felt like it would never get paid off. It was so much easier to rationalize purchases; "Ehh, I'll just throw it on the credit card"... NOT ANYMORE! Now I just feel hyper focused on throwing as much money as I can at this beast! And it's such a relief to finally be doing something about it.


Though I knew I had good credit, there was a part of me that was worried we wouldn't qualify since my income for the year so far was impacted by my maternity leave. Which makes me want to hate the banks even more because the bottom line is, this loan adjustment was the right thing to do. Ultimately it will help our monthly payments be much more affordable since the minimum due is lower, which means I can pay more than the minimum and it will go towards the principle and get us out of debt faster, which means we can eventually spend more money on cable. I mean, Leah's education. 


For the record I don't have a crazy cable package even now, no movie channels or anything. But it could be a lot smaller. And less expensive. 


So we're on our way. Ideally I'd love to say that by this time next year I will be a full time Mom, but I just don't know if we will be able to swing it. Currently a decent Health Insurance package for the three of us would be close to $1,000 per month. Which seems insane. But I have to try. Because I really, really, really want to be home with her. And I'm just so ridiculously thankful that Brian is not only supportive of this, but willing to work his ass off EVEN MORE than he is now, to make it happen. (I love you, dear!) We can always make money, but she will only be this little once...


Also, her projected height is 6'1, so Brian and I are Banking On a scholarship for Volleyball at Stanford - holla!