Asher October 06 text

10-30-06

He FINALLY broke 16 pounds this morning! He also slept all night long on Saturday night. By "all night", I mean that he went to sleep around 10:30 and didn't get up until I got him up at 6:30. I woke up, looked at the clock, and was totally freaked out that he hadn't woken me up all night so I had to go in there and feed him. Of course, by then I had so much milk that he was choking and spluttering through his feeding and all day long he was pretty much mad at me because he was having so much trouble nursing. This kid really needs to learn how to handle breathing and nursing at the same time in volume. I'm wondering more about that reflux thing. Here's the weird thing: On Saturday night, he went to bed around 8:30-9 the first time. Then he woke up about 10:30 (normal) and I fed him again. This time though, he kept letting go to throw his head back like he was trying to get comfortable laying on his back. I figured if he wasn't going to nurse anyway, I'd lay him down and get some laundry folded and come back when he was ready to sleep so I laid him down in his crib on his back (normally he won't stay asleep unless I put him on his tummy) and he just turned his head way up so he was looking at his mobile and held onto the covers when I put them on him and... went to sleep. By the time I finished with the laundry I couldn't believe he was really asleep like that so I went in there to check on him and he just had the covers pulled up to his chin and was sleeping. At 6:30 when I got him I put him awake on his back again figuring that he'd never repeat that - but he did. He went back to sleep for another hour or two. He hasn't done that again since though. Last night he was up once at 3 but that was about it. I really would rather that he get up to eat at least once - so that's OK.
Last night he was rolling around on the floor and I was watching to see if he was getting close to crawling. He would just start to work his knees up under him when either his arm would give out or he'd do it on purpose but he always rolled before his knees would get very much under him. I'm wondering if he is just going to be one of those babies that rolls everywhere. He sure makes good time with that! It seems though that he only really rolls to the left so he gets kinda stuck once he hits a road block in that direction.

10-27-06

Well, nothing's wrong - and I felt like a total idiot. I hate going to the doctor when they tell you nothing is wrong. She did mention that his upper gums were "REALLY" swollen, but doctors will never actually attribute stuffy noses and cold-like symptoms to teething anymore. At least not in our office. Not that Ash is really stuffy. She did mention that with his crying and problems nursing sometimes and issues with laying down it might be a little reflux which does cause a slightly stuffy nose. I don't know - he doesn't spit up nearly as much as Gavin did - but he is my only baby to start crying and pulling away while nurisng so maybe. It doens't happen often anyway so I'm not really worried about that - I just hope he starts sleeping better. The doc did say that he could sleep in his car seat as long as he was buckled in. That's just crazy. What baby will fall asleep and stay asleep in the car seat while you buckle them in without actually driving around in the car? Ash doesn't really sleep in the car seat anyway all that much so it isn't an issue.
Man can this kid move! If you put him down anywhere - you better pay attention because he'll be across the room before you know it. No, he's not crawling or anything, he just scoots and rolls all over the place. It isn't on purpose so I wouldn't say that he is "mobile", but he is getting there! The other day he worked himself over to the wall in the kids' room while we were reading bedtime stories and he was under the hanging robes. He had a blast batting at the robe ties that were hanging down over his head.
So - now we're waiting for the two front teeth to come in for Gavin and Ash. :)

10-26-06

I think we're heading into the docs tonight. Well, we have an appointment at 5:45, so I guess that means I know we are heading in. Why? Because Ash is acting weird. That's actually what they put on the appointment sheet for me. The kid won't sleep for longer then 20 minutes! He wants to be held up all night long to sleep in my arms. He also is not really gaining weight like I'd expect him to. I could almost swear that he has a sinus infection from how he is acting, only babies can't GET sinus infections. Plus, he was never sick to begin with so I don't know what is going on. Wish us luck at the docs.

I measured Ash last night with one of my sewing tape measures and he was 24 inches or so! That, according to the growth chart people, is in something like the 78th percentile for height! He went from the 50% at 3 months to the 78% at 5 months, while his weight actually went down a little, percentile-wise, not pound-wise. It is so crazy to me to see such a big difference in percentiles with such a small physical difference though. I mean, he is only 4 inches longer then he was at birth. 4 inches - that's nothing.

Oh, and yesterday Ash told me he loved me. :) I know, all you skeptics out there don't believe me. But he did. I was holding him up and saying "Mama loves Asher." while kissing his neck and he'd laugh and laugh and then look at me and say "love". Ya, I know, you think it was just baby babble that I misstook as an actual word, but I know better. :)

10-24-06

Last night Ash had his first playgroup get-together. Actually, I had invited a bunch of people to come and hear some information about cloth diapering and stuff like that. I felt so bad for the woman I talked into coming over and showing her stuff because I didn't manage to get a lot of people there, but it was still fun. There was a little newborn baby and a little boy a bit older then Ash. The older boy was crawling and it was fun to see him so on the move! Ash would just laugh and laugh whenever he saw the other babies! He seems to be a social little guy! I got to try out a sling with someone there to help me possition the baby in it and I really liked it! It was also over $50 - yikes! I'm thinking maybe I could make one myself with some of that fabric I have downstairs. I also tried a nursing necklace. I had always wondered what those were - what made them "nursing" necklaces, ya know? Well, apparently it is something the kids will play with while nursing to keep them content and not so distracted. Score on that, I though, but when I tried it Ash wouldn't nurse because he wanted to chew on the fun little necklace pieces. Not cutting down on the distractions, huh?
I weighed Ash this morning and he was actually down some. Hmm - I wonder if he isn't fighting off a tiny little cold or something. He seems fine but he was fussy last night a lot and he is just not gaining the weight like normal for him. Maybe teething - the old fall back on whiny babies, right? Man this kid is getting his teeth early!

10-23-06

Happy 5 months Ash!
Well, I think I jinxed him by saying that he would be 16 pounds by now. He only made 15 pounds 14 ounces. I think it is so funny that he keeps hitting 14 ounces on the month marks. This is the first month that he went under the 50% mark, but I expected him to eventually. If he follows Gavin's lead, he will stick here at about 16-17 pounds for the next year! Well, I don't expect him to do that, but he will probably be slimming down now.
My mom gave me this baby food grinder from when I was a baby and I used it to make some baby-food bananas (I know, real hard to mush them up!) and some baby-food oatmeal. I actually made real normal oatmeal and put in some real maple syrup (not that high fructose junk that most people CALL maple syrup and that my kids are addicted to) and put it in the grinder and gave that to him. It was really just a taste. It was fun because the grinder still left a lot of texture to the cereal and Ash got a real kick out of eating it. He loved the bananas too, which daycare has said he didn't like. Hmmm - maybe the real thing tastes better then the thick paste from the jars?? I'm loving this grinder thing - apparently you can just bring it to the table and feed your baby the same thing the rest of the family is eating every day. The big ad for it on the package says that you can be sure your baby is getting better nurtition with your family every day! LOL! Whatever. They clearly haven't been watching me feed my kids Ramen Noodles and Pizza. However, we do actually try to make sure that there is good fresh foods in with that stuff and they generally eat pretty decently. Just not as well as the jarred baby foods these days are with their super nutrient load. Plus, I don't actually think you can get pizza into that food grinder. Speaking of fresh foods - I tried my hand at making real actual spaghetti sauce from real actual tomotoes this weekend. I liked it, but my kids wouldn't touch it. It tasted NOTHING like the stuff Prego makes. Do they even use tomatoes? Weird. Weirder... it was EASY to make. As easy as dumping the stuff out of the jar and heating it up. Why did we because a nation of jarred spaghetti sauce eating people anyway? I mean, chicken soup... that's hard to make. I see why we buy pre-made soups. Cook a bunch of tomatoes until they turn into goo? Easy as heating up the sauce. Weird. OK, back to Ash.
I updated his Tater's First Year page with his 5 month pic. His hands have really caught my eye as being different! His arm looks so much longer from the 3 month pic too. Eventually here, I'm going to have to pack up the 3-6 month outfits I guess. I got the kids matching outfits the past weekend and I love them! Ash has this little hat and Gavin wants his hat too really bad so I'm going to have to see if I can find one for him now. Ash's is 6-9 months and those pants just barely make it over his diaper. I was reading the tag for 6-9 months and it is sized 16-18 pounds. Hello?? I have 3-6 month items in his closet that say 14-18 pounds! Can we all just get together some time and agree on what makes an item a particular size? It's hard enough trying to make things fit on these fast growing kids but you get manufactorers that have all different ideas and it gets impossible.

10-19-06

As I sat in my little "lactation room" pumping milk for Ash this morning and reading my growing supply of whatever parenting magazines I can get my hands on, I was totally blindsided by something: Americans ACTUALLY still think a picture of a baby nursing is crude. OK, not a lot of Americans, but some. I recall the last time I was blindsided like this. I was a kid - I don't remember the actual age - but I found out that there were actually still living Americans that literally thought women were inherently unable to do some things that men could do. (Other then write words in the snow with their pee.) Shortly thereafter, I found out that there actually were still Americans that thought people with different skin colors were actually somehow less able to do things then other people. This was a shock to my system. I had somehow managed to grow up thinking that racism was a thing of America's past - not present. I thought that the civil war was the end. We all grew up and learned better and all the imformation about it was just teaching us about our history as a country. I thought the Women's Liberation Movement was the end of sexism. History, not present day thinking. HOW could someone think those things today? WELL - how could someone in today's world actually think that seeing someone breastfeeding their baby, either in public in person or in a photo on the cover of a magazine, be crude? It is unreal. How did I come across this? The magazine I was reading was BabyTalk - a free magazine from the people at Parenting magazine. Last month the cover photo was a very close up image of a baby nursing. Truely, I had thought nothing of it. I didn't feel happy that they published such a photo, I didn't think it was anything to even comment on. It was just one of the many magazines I had sitting out on our table at home. I brought it to work and had it sitting on my desk at work not thinking about it, and I brought it into my lactation room to read while pumping not thinking about the picture on the front. In fact, I didn't think about it at all until THIS month the magazine wrote about what a big scandel it was to publish the picture. Now, the magazine TRIED to say that they were groundbreaking or something in this, but Mothering magazine, which is an alternative parenting magazine that published cloth diaper ads, refuses to have bottle or formula pictures or ads, and writes stories about how very truely evil circumcision is, has published many such covers in the past. Anyway, I digress. Here is a link:
news story on cover photo

SO... I'm reading the reader comments on this cover photo and have to wonder about the one starting with "ew ew ew ew ew..." This is the one I will take with me for the rest of my life though: A reader of Muslim faith wrote in to comment on the debate. She was an avid breastfeeder - as her religion promotes - and she nurses her baby all over the place. She has never once in her home country, which places an extreme important on female modesty, been looked down on or made to feel bad for nursing her baby in public. Ever. Americans, however, have done it on a regular basis. This women, who, frankly as far as I see it comes from a culture that could SERIOUSLY improve with some femanism pushes, thought Americans were being prudish. This isn't about showing skin - this is about being a parent to your child. It opened my eyes to the fact that people in America that state "ew" to a baby nursing are NOT doing so because of the modesty issue. They are doing so because they don't like the idea of nursing - covered up or not. The other reason that reader's comments will always stick with me is because when Gavin was 9 months old, we went on a trip to NY. We flew on a plane and I was sitting in the middle with my husband on the aisle and a stranger in the window seat next to us. An Arabian stranger. I got a HUGE kick out of nursing Gavin on this plane trip in front of a man that I thought was going to have a very big problem with having a woman expose her breast in front of him. Now, looking back on that moment, I didn't ever look at him or have any indication that he even cared that I was nursing my son on the plane. Maybe he didn't think anything of it. Maybe I was assuming something, both of his culture AND my own, that was not true. Really something to think about.

10-16-06

Hey, I have feet!! hehe - I put Ash in our little bumbo, or beebo, or bubu, or whatever the chair is called, seat the other day while I worked on something on the couch. It's this plastic covered foam chair that has a big block that goes between the kids' legs so they can sit up earlier. We got it back when Ash was just 3 months old but he didn't like it much then. I think it scared him to be sitting up like that at that point. I hadn't put him in it for awhile after that but he really liked it on Saturday! He could see and reach his feet! They were right there! Wow - who knew so much fun was right there at the end of his legs all along? Now he is grabbing his feet all the time and it is even keeping him up because he is too busy playing with his feet while nursing to fall asleep. Speaking of nursing, he is getting SOOO distracted. This part of nursing is tough! I have to keep pulling his head back in place to nurse and he will do so for a few seconds and unlatch to turn and look at something else. I know, if he is hungry enough he'll eat. It's just frustrating because I'd prefer not to have the food sitting available all day long while he snacks at 4 second intervals. When we join a nudist colony and move somewhere warm - maybe - but not now. Plus, it is nearly impossible to watch TV and nurse at the same time because Ash keeps wanting to watch TV too. I was watching one of my CSI episodes and I kept covering up Ash's eyes because that show is just not family appropriate. I cannot believe how graphic they can get on just regular TV! I don't know that he'd understand what it is or anything, but I'm certainly not going to risk having him see that.
Oh - and Ash was 15 pounds 13-14 or so ounces this morning. I'm pretty sure he'll make 16 pounds by 10-22. He is already as big as Jessie was at 8 months old! In fact, Ash and Jessie are only 10 pounds different from each other. All of it is in the legs and arms too because their chest measurements are identical.

10-10-06

Ash is such a funny kid! He LOVES to hold onto and chew on blankets and he is always pulling them up over his head and laughing away. The other day I was sitting at my desk using the serger to make some more absorbant inserts to go into their cloth diapers and he was laying on the floor watching me. As I finished with one, I'd toss it down to him and put it on his tummy. He'd laugh and laugh and grab them and throw them up over his head. Pretty soon he was laying in a pile of these things with some up over his head and some all around him, three in his hands being chewed on and several still on his tummy. He was giggling up a storm! I thought maybe the noise of the serger would scare him but he didn't mind. He also didn't mind when I was vacuuming the other day nor when he was laying on his butterfly mat and I was using the rug shampooer - and that was really loud and really close to where he was laying. That's good because his sister is a TOTAL scaredy cat about everything. Oh, I know this is Ash's page, but you should've heard her SCREAM when she was hiding behind the door in the TV room playing hide-n-seek with Gavin and Mowgli (you know, the wonder cat) came running out from behind the door and darted out of the room. Daddy even came running and we thought that he had scratched her or something from that scream!! It took her forever to calm down after that. last night she wouldn't even walk through the house alone because she was afraid of Mowgli! So ya, Ash... not scared of loud noises is good.

Oh, I haven't been reporting his weight all the time anymore - I haven't even been weighing him all the time anymore really. I know that he is over 15 pounds 10 ounces now so he is growing really great! He is loving his cereal at daycare and she's been giving him a little variety with some fruits and such. He apparently is NOT a banana fan. Part of me is jealous about her feeding him the solids but really, he is only 4 months old and I wouldn't even be giving him solids if he weren't at daycare so I want to still just nurse him when he is with me. He'll have a lifetime of eating other things and I just want him to stay my little nursling for a bit longer. Plus, GROSS on those cereal poops man - we don't have to be making that any worse! I know they say moms aren't grossed out by anything but that is just not true. We just have to deal with it. You should've seen me nearly gag the other day when Jessie slurped up her own drool as it dripped down her chin. Daddy was laughing so hard and I swear I nearly had to run for the bathroom. That was just.... ew!
Anyway, onto better topics... have you seen the proofs from the link on the main page????? Isn't my monkey adorable???!!!!! I wish I could put a way to have comments on this site. Of course, there's always the guestbook that people can sign!

10-4-06

Ash sprung another tooth! He now has his first two bottom front teeth, and he isn't even 5 months yet! Yikes kid. Hopefully he'll stop drooling for a little bit now and get a break before any more come in. Speaking of a break, who wants to let Mommy sleep??? Not Ash! Ugh! Come ON kid! At least I'm good at sleeping sitting up in his rocking chair now.

10-3-06

The minivan saga continues, but it is way too pathetic for me to share anymore. Let me just say that I'm currently driving a rental car, and it is a NEON! I am suffering probably irrepairable mental harm from having to drive around in a Dodge Neon right now.

Anyway, we all went out for some family pictures last weekend. It was tiring - boy - those baby wranglers have to WORK for their pay! We got some good pictures and I'll have the proofs soon to share with everyone. I have to say that I'm much less impressed with this place's work then I am with Bruce Schnack. It is just too bad that they are so far away and dang-it, I want to get my proofs to display online! This new place gives you all the proofs so there are trade offs. Maybe I can work with them... I was noticing in the pictures that they showed us before we left that Kris and I were not really placed as well as we should've been. There was no "turn your head this way" remarks to make the pictures really great. In the family shots my head is RIGHT on top of Ash's and the placement is funny. Plus, they were really obessesed with getting the kids to all look at the camera and smile. Personally, I think the candid shots of the kids jsut doing their thing are much better. Who needs a bunch of "cheese" pictures? It is much cuter when they are looking at each other and all that. There was this time on a little bridge out in the yard when Jessie was holding Gavin and leaning into him and Gavin was looking down at her... how CUTE, ya know? And there's the photographer going "OK, now look here... " Like a clown on uppers trying to get their attention. Oh well. Someone else knows someone that is local that I might try.

Ash is really rolling over these days! He can go either way and if you put him down, he probably will. He can lay under the little butterfly toy we have that dangles baby toys and grab what he wants, he just has a hard time manipulating things in his hands to turn them the right way to chew on them and such so he gets pretty mad. We also got a little exersaucer and he can sit in that and roll the little toys and spin and such, but he gets mad that he can't grab onto things and chew on them like he wants. Just a matter of time! I'm waiting for that second tooth to pop through since he is still so drooly and chewing on everything. Oh, and wait until we get those proofs back! There is a surprise picture that you'll love!