Solid Foods

Enjoying Rice Cereal

When we took Noah in for his 4-month old appointment, I was so nervous about the vaccines he was going to get I didn't spend time researching to see what kinds of questions the doctor was going to ask us. I've heard you should always read up on the development questions ahead of time so that you can pay attention to what your baby is doing and answer the questions without sitting there in the office scratching your head trying to remember if your baby is or isn't doing something. But Noah had an adverse reaction to his 2-month old vaccines so I was obsessed with finding out why my baby had such a bad experience. Lots of other moms had told me their babies didn't like vaccines so I didn't realize that "normal" is to cry in the office when you get the shot, but then calm to your mommy or daddy holding you.

So we spent time talking to his pediatrician about the adverse reaction he had for the 2-month shot and we made a decision about his future vaccines. Then she started to ask the developmental questions. "I'm not prepared for this." I thought to myself, but they were easy. "Can he rollover on his own?" "Yes" I shouted out excitedly. This was going to be easy. "Does he try to sit up?" "Yes" again. "Is he trying to bear his own weight?" "Yes" again. Such a piece of cake. Then, "Is he eating solid foods?" And my head came to a screeching halt. "Solid?" I babbled back. "Solid foods. Are you giving Noah rice cereal?" "No." Damn it, she got me. So she gave us an introductory sheet into solid foods. Noah got his shots. Took them like a champ. He cried then smiled at the nurse and us as we got him ready to leave the office.

Ash reminded me as we left the office that the doctor wasn't try to get me with her questions. That she and he and everyone else in the world thinks I'm a great mom. That I hadn't ruined our child's life by not giving him solid foods. But I wasn't having it. How could I, Amanda Llorens, clear candidate for mother of the year, have missed such an important stage? And further more, What was with the got you line of questioning? Wouldn't it be more appropriate to hand me a list of what I should be doing between now and the next appointment so I can check the list off instead of resorting to google?

As soon as we headed home and Noah went down for his nap, I hit google. And I was delighted to find, I'm not a bad mom. Of course I needed google to tell me that. Hearing it from my husband and my mother and even the happy chortling baby of mine are not enough. I need google validation. In fact, the AAP just recently said that it's okay to introduce solid foods between 4 and 6 months. Before that they said 6 months, and if you read more in depth into their research it seems some babies just aren't ready for them until 6 months. So I was happy that I hadn't messed up yet. But at the same time I had noticed that Noah was starting to stare at our food while we eat dinner at night. And I was pretty sure that little movement with his mouth that he started doing was him trying to eat along with us.

So we pulled up consumer reports and ordered a high chair. Did more research, and decided to give him organic baby cereal instead of making our own. We'll make our own sweet potatoes and the like, but for cereal we're going with the AAP recommendation to feed him a cereal made for babies so he'll get the extra iron kids his age need.

My first attempt with the cereal came before the high chair we ordered came in. One morning Noah was intently watching the spoon go from my bowl to my mouth and sucking along with me. So I fed him in his swing. Noah thought the cereal was stupid and spit it all back at me then threw up the cereal that had managed to sneak down his throat. So I put it away, waited a few days for the high chair to come and then set him up like a "good big boy baby" and tried again. Let's just say this boy loves him some cereal.


This looks like loving it, right?

Well, on the way down anyway. Now that he has to digest it, he's back to thinking it sucks. I'll probably wait a few more days to try it again in case his digestive system just isn't ready for solids yet.



I was worried that introducing foods would make him not want breast milk, but he ate right before his solid food meal and then right after. So it seems although I missed the solid food memo, he got it, and he understands cereal is supposed to supplement what we're already doing, not replace it. Guess he's a better candidate for baby of the year than I am for mother of the year.

Figures.


Remnants of a good meal

A little bit of me, a little bit of dad

and a whole lot of you.

Noah,

You're 21 weeks old today. I can't even believe that in a week, you'll be 5 months old. Seriously, I know I keep saying this, but where is time going? My friend Kathy and I have joked about how being pregnant and having a baby is like this timer on the rest of your life. You're more likely to notice how long it's been since you've seen someone when you have this little clock that's telling you, "Hey, Noah's 5 months old, and you haven't seen so and so since before you were pregnant."

Lately, I look down at you and am baffled at how much a little person you've become. You make baby jokes that you laugh at, smile all the time, and remind me of your dad and me. There are times, I look down at you or over at you when you're on your dad's lap and I see a little Ashley. Looking around all deep in thought just like your daddy. Or doing something mischievous and getting that guilty face your dad gets when he's eaten the last cookie or chip and tries to tell me he doesn't know where they went.





Other times, you are smiling and laughing and I feel like I'm looking into a mirror. Your eyes squint up and you chuckle just like I do.





And then there are the other times where I look down at how beautiful and happy you are and you look just like you. You're an adorable little boy, and I really am enjoying every day we get to spend together.



From what I can tell. You are loving the time we spend together too. In fact, just when I thought maybe I was boring you, I got a horrible cold. So daddy helped by taking on taking care of you for me so I could get some sleep. You're smart so you made him think you were hungry every hour, so he would run you up the stairs to nurse. You would nurse, but mostly, you would just sit there staring up at me, smiling and watching everything I would do. Then daddy would see you were done eating and would whisk you away so I could sleep. You caught on that the hungry thing wouldn't work every 20 minutes so eventually you started crying hard. Daddy came running up the stairs, "Do you think he's hungry?" And as soon as you laid eyes on me you stopped crying, smiled and then sat there with me in our bed just watching me and smiling. You're definitely in an "I love mommy" phase which is very flattering since you spend so much time with me. It makes me know that you feel happy and loved.

You also love spending time playing with daddy and me. You still stick your fist in the air all the time and you play silly games with daddy and me. It's so fun to watch you anticipate what we're going to do. Seeing how much you already look up to your dad makes me sad for little boys who don't grow up with their dads or whose dads are too busy to be around to play with them. Last week, daddy got home from work one day and he ran straight up the stairs because he was home early and threw his arms in the air and screamed "Daddy's home" then he grabbed you from your chair to hug you. I knew exactly how he felt after being away from you for a day.

He doesn't want to be. And neither do I. You're just that great.

Happy 21 week birthday, Baby Noah!

Love, Mom

20 weeks and teething is upon us

Noah turned 20 weeks old today, and I cannot believe how fun having a little one has been for us. Over these 20 weeks we have laughed more than I ever imagined was possible.

From about 3 months on Noah has been the happiest little baby I've ever seen. I would say a week or two ago I noticed some extra crying that seemed easy enough to soothe, and then there was an unbelievable amount of drool, his naps started to be around 15 minutes at a time instead of a longer stretch in the morning or afternoon, and he kept biting on things. These should all have clued us in that our baby was starting to teethe. And in my defense, I did keep saying, "I think he might be teething." Sort of like how you say, "I think I may be having contractions" when your labor contractions first start coming. There"s always some build up.



But now, I am pretty sure that we're in full on teething mode. My normally happy baby has been having crying fits that you would not believe. And as I've always said to Ashley, the cries of pain are the hardest for me to handle as a mother. I endured colick for the first ten weeks of his life and I've heard my fair share of shrill like crying, but when my baby cries because something hurts, I want to die. I can't explain how or why it's different, but there is a sadness and a desperation that comes along with cries of pain. Noah is a happy baby, and even when he's upset or in pain he will still smile and try to be happy. But I know it's really hurting him, and it breaks my heart.



I finally admitted that we were in full on teething mode when for the third night in a row, Noah woke up every hour to nurse. I could tell something was wrong and he was looking for comfort. I feel really grateful that I'm able to provide him with that comfort, but it's been very hard for him to understand. He will cry and give me a pouty face and then the loudest, saddest crying I've ever heard follows. I hold him, help him hold a cold teether in his mouth, give him wet wash clothes to suck on, and I even tried baby Tylenol (which he held in his mouth for a minute then spit out all over his shirt). Nothing helps.



I should make sure to mention that he's not crying all the time. There are only times where the crying consumes him. He still has moments that show me he's the happiest little baby alive. He constantly laughs at his dad, himself and me. The smallest things will make him belly laugh. When he's at his changing station, which always has and remains to be his zen place, he's taken to sticking his fists up in the air. We're not sure why but he loves doing it. He also loves to be photographed. He will stare at the camera despite the flash, stare into the baby video monitor, and do whatever it takes to make me take his picture. Today, I captured him holding his fist up then I put the camera down. He looked at the camera, then at me, then put his fist in the air and looked right at me as if he wanted to say, "Go ahead, get a few more shots."



I adore him, and I cannot believe that every day I love him more. He's amazing, and discovering the world all over again with him is more fun and rewarding than I ever could put into words. But I try, every week anyway.

Noah turned 20 weeks today, and his grandma Nelson turned a few years older than that. Happy Birthday to you both!

Noah's first SoulStice show and holiday party all in one!

I meant to post some pictures from Noah's first holiday party and SoulStice show yesterday, but Noah learned to fake cry so I spent the day listening to fake crying that eventually turned into real crying because he couldn't remember why he was crying. It was mostly adorable until about 5 pm when the headache set in from a 4 and a half month old with some real lungs testing them out all day. :) I knew it was fake crying because it sounded different and because he would laugh and smile when I would ask if it was fake crying. The people at the mall watching me laugh as he fake cried didn't get it though.

Saturday was Ash's work party, and they had asked him to perform two sets during the party. The first set was at 11 am and the second set was at 1:15 pm. Since Noah usually has a catastrophic poop at 1 pm every day, I decided we would head to the 11 am show, say hi to some of daddy's friends and then head home. We woke up to slushy, sleety, rainy, snow, and I felt sorry for Noah that his first snow wasn't going to be substantial. That is until I looked at the weather forecast and it said we were going to get around 3 inches of snow. The real snow started coming around 11 am when Noah and I were heading over to the show. One of Ash's co-workers Heba met me in the front circle of the center the party was at and took Noah inside for me so that he wouldn't have to be subjected to the long walk from the parking lot.



I wasn't sure what to expect, but I should have known we were in for a good time when Noah not only let me put the Santa outfit I bought for him to wear on, but he also let me put the hat on and he just kept smiling at it. The party was a ton of fun, and Noah loved hearing his daddy rap. He even wore his "SoulStice's #1 Fan" onesie under his Santa costume. It was really special for our family to have a show of Ash's that Noah could actually attend. I think the three of us were glowing with happiness.


Noah enjoying his daddy's music


Daddy performing

We ended up staying at the party until 3, and Noah waited to have his monstrous poop until 3:30 pm. It was a perfect day.

Apologizing in Advance

So I am going to be adding an Info section to the blog, but because google was a little short-sighted in creating the templates and gadgets for its blogs if you are subscribed to this blog you will get 4 or 5 blank updates from me. They are likely to be titled as follows. Who Dad Is, Who Noah Is, Noah's Firsts and Who Mom Is.

Sorry, but after googling a solution to the problem of creating static pages on blogger, I've found that this is my best solution for now because I've manipulated the html code so many times and I don't know html well enough to find a way around this and apparently either does anyone else without me losing some of the other code I've added to get things the way I want on here. :)

Sometimes the only thing left to do...

... is laugh.

Today, Noah and I ventured out to meet up with Molly a friend/former co-worker of mine for lunch in DC. The ride to DC usually takes about 50 minutes door to door during non-commuter traffic, but I wanted to play it cautious so I gave Noah and me an hour and 20 minutes to get there. All was going well. Until there started to be a lot of congestion on the road. "Why are there so many people on the road in the middle of the day on a Thursday" I said to Noah who for the first 20 minutes of the trip was happily playing with his baby Einstein frog toy I had attached to the arm of his car seat.

I started to notice that this traffic was reminiscent of the traffic on days where it took me three hours to get to DC. How on earth I managed to commute for over three years to DC is beyond me, but somehow at the time I did. And now, I wasn't in the mood to sit in the car. I sent Ash a text message while our car was stopped which was most of the time that said, "This is taking forever, just waiting for the baby to start crying" because I knew that the only thing worse than this traffic would be this traffic with a crying baby. So I press send on the text message and cue baby, oh yes, he starts screaming right on cue. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. I texted the girls I was meeting to say traffic sucked and then called to ask if we could move it back half an hour because clearly two hours to get to DC would be more than enough time. And in the next 15 minutes or maybe 20 we moved a block. And the baby was screaming and me reaching back and sticking my finger in his mouth stopped working. I needed to pull off and try to nurse him or calm him or something. When I finally got to the next stop light I turned off, parked the car, pulled the baby out of his seat and he smiled at me. Then he started crying again and refused to eat. And the cries got louder and louder. Until finally, I decided that we were heading home.

I called Ash for moral support and to just tell him that I had tried. Hard. To do something fun today. And it had failed miserably and I'd made my baby cry. Hard. And I felt like a failure, and yes, I had straightened my hair to see the girls, and even worn heels. Here I was all dressed up with nowhere to go but anywhere I could go to calm my crying baby. I knew eventually we'd have to head home so I headed that way. A few minutes later which felt like an eternity, I turned off the road and headed to a little fast food Mexican spot where I could take Noah out of his seat to calm him down and get a bite to eat for lunch. As soon as I reached in the back to get the baby, he smiled and laughed and was so happy to see me. So we headed into the restaurant. I ordered a taco and a soda thinking I can down that pretty fast not realizing they put black beans on my taco. So when I took it out of the wrapper, the hard shell broke and the contents of the taco smashed into my face. I wasn't going to get off that easy. So I grabbed a fork and a ton of napkins. Wiped my face and ate what I could that hadn't smeared all across me already.

Noah laughed and smiled and was so happy to be alive at the taco place. I held him. Talked to him. Let him touch my cold cup. He assured me he was happy, so I decided to pack him up and head back home. I turned out of the parking lot back onto 29 to head home, and yes you guessed it, Noah started screaming again. At this point we were 10 minutes from home or so so I told him in the nicest voice I could muster up. "I love you, Noah, but we're heading home. We'll be there before the second song on your CD stops playing." He stopped crying and fell asleep. I turned off his CD and turned NPR on thinking I'd catch up on some world events. For the next five minutes I would pretend to be a normal person just listening to the radio and being outraged at what some stupid caller from some bourgeoisie suburb had to say to Kojo Nnamdi about the war. "A tree brought down wires at the corner of Lockwood and 29. The right two lanes have been closed since the early morning." There are only three lanes on 29. No wonder it was taking so long. Had I only listened to NPR 2 hours earlier I wouldn't have sat in that parking lot all morning.

No worries. I decided to head home but thought maybe just maybe I should stop at Dunkin' Donuts to grab a cup of that iced decaf coffee I like so much. Surely that would perk my day up. When we got to the parking lot of the Dunkin' Donuts, I opened the back door and found Noah sleeping peacefully. It felt wrong to take him out of the car and risk him waking up when he had just fallen asleep so I closed the door got back in the car and headed home. I didn't need to be selfish. Not today. I'd be a good mom and let my baby get at least a forty minute nap.

As soon as we got home, I quietly maneuvered Noah out of the car and to the front door. Success. He was still sleeping. When all of a sudden around the corner came the neighborhood landscapers and their leave blowers. I tried to push my way through our front door. If I could slam it before... and then the landscaper guys in unison started blowing the leaves. There were three leave blowers going at once, but it sounded like forty. And it sounded like they were in our house waiting for us on the landing. Noah's eyes opened wide, he looked up at me smiled then started crying. I should have grabbed that coffee.

We headed upstairs and I gave Noah a hug. He started to nurse, then stopped and let out a loud poop. Normally, around 1 pm I have to hurry and change his diaper because if he has long enough he will poop two or three times in a row. He immediately went back to nursing. "Oh no" I thought as I heard the second round of pooping. My leg was warm and wet. "Did he?" Again, a third round of pooping.

Noah stopped eating, raised his eyebrows at me, then in unison we both let out the loudest belly laugh we've ever shared. There was nothing left to do but laugh and clean up all the poop.

A Formidable Opponent

Today was a rough day. Noah is generally very happy and adorable these days. In fact from about three months on, this child has mostly only smiled and laughed at me. And for some reason, last night he decided to chat and smile at me from 1:30 am to 4:15 am. This was after he woke up at 11:30 pm to eat and again at 1:15.

So needless to say, he's a baby and he still woke up at 7:30 am as he does most days despite not getting as much sleep as he normally does.

This meant that today, no matter what I did it was wrong. I held him he fussed, I put him down he fussed more. I read to him, he cried. I stopped reading, he cried harder. I tried to feed him, he cried. I put the breasts away he cried harder. He wanted to cuddle to sleep, but cried when I cuddled him and refused to nap. You get the idea.

The only place he was happy was his changing table. From a very young age, maybe 3 weeks old, Noah has loved his changing station in his bedroom. We call it his Zen place. It's the place that he does the most talking and no matter what is going on he tends to smile and laugh and scream with joy when he is on his changing table. He will spend a long time there if we let him, but sometimes I don't think it's the best idea to spend a whole day with him on his back at the changing table. Although today, I considered it. He has acid reflux so we can't leave him on his back for too long, but for some reason he loves that changing station. Maybe be he has 100% of our undivided attention and a great view of the rest of his room, toys, mobile and all.

Tonight, Ash came upstairs with Noah and me after dinner so I could give Noah his Zantac for his acid reflux because we thought he seemed extra fussy and it could be due to his acid reflux. Noah's figured out how to hold the liquid in long enough to convince me he's swallowed it only to spit it all out. Sometimes this is 10 minutes after I've given him a dose. Just when I think we're in the clear. So today, Ash held him and we tried to tip his head back the way the nurses at the doctor do it to get him to take the liquid vaccines from them. And low and behold, he smiled and squeezed the Zantac out of both sides of his mouth.

It's okay that Noah's fussy today because he spends around 95% of his days smiling and laughing and it's a good reminder to us that Noah's human. He gets annoyed and bored just like any other baby. It's just he saves it up for one day a month I guess where he doesn't want anything to do with what we think is good for him.

I'll take it. But I can still get him to smile when I say, "Who is mama's baby? Are you mama's baby? Who's mama's boy?" For some reason, he can't resist me smiling and talking to him and asking him those questions. In between whining and pouty lips, he smiles and his eyes light up, and we both know who mama's boy really is.