A Page for Elliot and Calliope: October 2011

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Milking issues

Crap! The breast pump broke a few hours ago. The motor is completely dead (as far as I can tell from taking it apart). A new one costs $300. I'm searching for a used one. Hope I can find one in the next 24 hours or my milk may dry up. I tried hand pumping--slow and ineffective (half the milk, twice the time, difficult). And I tried to make him nurse directly, but that didn't go over very well either.

Baby Burrito

Ingredients for a 9 layer Baby Burrito:

1 baby (freshly washed)
1 clean diaper
1 pair fuzzy socks
1 nightgown
1 long sleeve fleece sleep sack
1 fleece swaddle blanket
1 fleece blanket (baby size, folded in two)
1 cotton hat
1 wooly hat with ear flaps

Start with a clean baby. Wrap and tuck all ingredients, in order, around squirming bundle. When you can barely see exposed skin, you're almost done. Place in bassinet and hope that he's warm enough.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

First Snow

It snowed today (and still is snowing as I type) for the first time. It's wet slushy snow, but Elliot's first, so we went out in it to explore. He seems entranced by all the white. He was warm all bundled up in his cozy fleecy suit (and many layers underneath). We did get a little wet, so next time, we take an umbrella.

Our International Baby Group

We have formed an informal baby group with some moms and babies around the neighborhood. I met one mom in my dancing through pregnancy class, and through her, as well as a baby and mom exercise class, we've met a few others. Yesterday I had everyone over for tea and munchies. It was really fun! Most of the babies are around Elliot's age, but one is 2 months older, and one is 1 month younger. There's one girl in the group. So many boyfriends to choose from! Languages represented in the group: English, Italian, German, and Hebrew (and a little Spanish and French).

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Waaaaaaaaaaa

Mostly non-stop crying today is driving me crazy.

Where is the DADDY when you need one to take over for a while?!

New developments in the past days: He acts hungry, so I try to feed him, but he cries so much that he gets too upset to do anything. The only thing that will calm him is to swaddle tightly, hold in the pacifier, and at the same time jump up and down until he stops (10 min?), then do a switch-a-roo with the pacifier/bottle. Then he eats just fine, then falls asleep, only to repeat in +/- 90 minutes.

AAaaaaarrrggghhh.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

baby's first novel

I'm subscribed to an e-mail list that sends me updates on what milestones my baby should be hitting as he develops, as well as health tips and other interesting and useful tidbits. What drives me crazy, or makes me paranoid, is that it's designed for full term babies so I'm always thinking that he's so far behind where he should be (though of course I know chronologically he's really 4 weeks behind because of his premature birth).

He ISn't rolling over yet (and doesn't seem to be even close to it). He ISn't doing baby push ups yet. He just barely started reaching for (more like batting at) dangling toys. He ISn't sleeping through the night (or more than 4 hours at a time). He still eats every 2 hours during the day. But he's just about the size of a full term 3 month old.

I don't focus on what he SHOULD be doing according to "the experts", but rather, I am in awe of what he DOES do. Though it still throws me off when I get an e-mail saying something like "At 4 months your baby should be running his own publishing business and learning the fine art of French Indonesian cooking," (or something like that) when Elliot can't even read yet and doesn't know where Indonesia is on the map.