the pieces of my life

Doodles can roll from his front to his back. I’ve seen him do it a couple of times. Yet, he seems to have forgotten how to do it. Because now he rolls from his back to his front–obviously forgetting that he detests tummy time–and then gets stuck. I’ve been summoned into his room more times lately to roll him, in his crib, back to his back. The routine is this: he gets on his stomach and starts to cry; I roll him back; he smiles and then within seconds rolls right back to his stomach and starts to cry again; lather, rinse, repeat. I just hope I can teach him soon that if he doesn’t like being on his stomach, he shouldn’t get on his stomach.

My father has it in his head that he’s going to teach Doodles all the math and science he needs to know. So he’s starting the lessons. Only he refuses to start at the beginning–too boring, he says. So he’s teaching Doodles his prime numbers. Over the course of the weekend, my father would raise his arm and shout, “It’s prime time!” And then he’d yell out, “Two! Three! Five!” Of course, when Doodles was feeling sick, he was “not ready for prime time,” however, I decided that teaching him to say “Jane, you ignorant slut,” wasn’t the best thing to teach an almost-seven-month old. When I need to hire a math tutor because Doodles doesn’t understand that one and four need to fit in there somewhere when counting, I’m sending the bill to my dad.

To celebrate my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary–which happens later this month–the family went up to Bretton Woods for the weekend. We stayed in the townhomes there, which were surprisingly nice given that they were chosen randomly off the Web. Having the townhouse was key, because in enabled everyone to do his or her own thing. The Tweedle Twins (the Tweedle Twirp and her boyfriend) could sleep in late while the rest of us went for breakfast. The folks with the wee baby could go to sleep early while the others stayed up finishing off their game of Trivial Pursuit. We could all indulge in hot chocolate and cookies right in our room. We had one fancy-shmancy dinner at the Mt. Washington Hotel and it was really fabulous. My only regret is I ordered poorly for dessert (I had the oysters, frisee, and lamb, and they were all superb).

For the activities, we all split up, with my father and Adam hitting the slopes (Peter to ski; Adam to snowboard), the Tweedle Twins playing Ping Pong at the hotel (the townhomes are part of the resort so we had full access to the hotel and sports center), and me, my mother, and Doodles going snowshoeing. Snowshoeing was wonderful. I wasn’t sure Doodles could handle it, but he did quite well. I put him in the Baby Bjorn and stuck a pair of sunglasses on him because it was a bit windy and I didn’t want the reflection from the snow to hurt his eyes. Oh man, you’ve never seen such an adorable snowshoer. We got stopped a bunch of times as people oohed and aahed at how cute he was. I had intended to go out for just an hour, but he was doing so well that we stayed out for two hours. About halfway through I could see Doodles was getting tired so I turned him around in the carrier so he could fall asleep on my chest. I really enjoy snowshoeing and I’m not sure why I haven’t done it more. My first experience was at Mt. Rainier and it was obviously much hillier and the snow was plentiful. The weather conditions at Bretton Woods were lovely–the weather was in the mid-30s and the skies were only a tad overcast. The only downside of snowshoeing with Doodles is that by the end of the day, my shoulders were pretty sore from the weight of our chunky monkey in his Baby Bjorn.

The next day, I had a short massage scheduled. I feel a little gypped on the massage, as when comparing notes with Adam–who had the same therapist just before I did–he had a much more aggressive massage. I like a lot of pressure, but I think she was a sexist masseuse and gave Adam a better rub. However before the massage I found my parents who were tubing. I wasn’t going to try it, as at the age of three my father had severely traumatized me. We lived at the time in Westchester County in New York and we had a very steep driveway (I’m sure my father will post a comment claiming it wasn’t that steep at all, but I was three and dammit, it seemed steep to me!). He stuck me on top with a tobaggan, went to the bottom, and told me to slide down. I didn’t want to. It was long and scary and I wanted nothing to do with it. It was a horrible experience and it turned me off of sledding. So when I saw my folks tubing, I initially wanted nothing to do with it. The slope was fairly icy and it looked dangerous. But overcoming my fears, I got into the tube, and gave it a go. Man, do I love tubing! I went on three runs before I had to go get my weak massage.

Overall, the weekend was lovely and Doodles was well behaved the entire time. He charmed folks everywhere and during our fancy-shmancy dinner, he kindly slept through the majority of the meal (babysitting could have been arranged, but if I don’t feel comfortable with people babysitting in my own home, there’s no way I’d let them babysit in a rented townhome). For anyone looking for a weekend getaway, I highly recommend the resort at Bretton Woods in New Hampshire.

The stomach flu has been going around. The day care sent home a notice a week ago saying that it had hit the majority of the kids in the infant room (eight of ten babies) and that we should be watching out for it. A number of our friends have had it, including one baby friend who sadly had to be hospitalized for dehydration from it (he’s fine now). So I shouldn’t have been that surprised when, on Saturday night in Bretton Woods, Adam called me into the bedroom to see Doodles. He was fast asleep in more vomit than I have ever seen before in my life. It covered the entire bottom of the Pack N Play. Blech. Interestingly, though, Doodles wasn’t at all bothered by it. We woke him up to get him out of the vomit, and he was in fine spirits. I breastfed him to make sure he was hydrated and he threw that right up, but with a gigantic grin on his face. By the next morning, he was fine. However, on Monday night, the flu hit our house and hard. Doodles gave me the flu, Adam the flu, and my mother the flu, and at last count, my father was on his way down with it. Little innocent Doodles is Patient Zero in our house and he’s been wanting his playtime even though Adam and I are zombies at death’s–or at least the bathroom–door. I would take my being sick any day over Doodles being sick, but it’s so hard to keep up with an active, healthy baby when all you want to do is sleep and puke. I’m just hoping we don’t give it back to him and start the cycle all over again.

This has actually been a fairly quiet week. No sickness. No disasters. Doodles is–amazingly–sleeping through the night soundly, generally going to bed between 7 and 7:30 p.m. and waking up between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. Of course, I still wake up many times just to go in and check on him to make sure he’s still breathing (we’re going away for a weekend and I’m worried that it’s going to disrupt his schedule). He’s taking two naps a day–in his crib–of one to two hours. He’s sitting fairly well unassisted, but we still have to pile pillows around him because toward the end of the day, he topples a lot. He’s easily distracted, which is a good thing, because when he starts to get riled up, we can just point him toward something else. He’s biting a lot, and with that second bottom tooth starting to emerge, it’s quite painful. Between that and the pinching, he’s become quite the deadly child. He’s also become quite the little babble monkey, saying “ba ba ba ba” and “ahgoo” all the time. He wakes up so nicely in the morning–on the monitor we hear, “ba ba ba, oooo, ba ba, ooo, na na na, ahgoo!” But things have been going quite smoothly. Of course, Adam’s a different story these days. He’s not sleeping through the night (between papers and spring training, there’s lots on his mind). He is sitting quite well unassisted (haven’t seen him tumble in a while) but he’s easily distracted, and that isn’t so much a plus for a B-student in his final days of classes. Luckily, Adam’s biting and pinching isn’t so bad, which is a relief because he already has all his teeth. Adam’s babbling has gotten a bit out of hand, especially when I’m trying to get work done (which he’s doing right now–he’s muttering some nonsense about the conference he’s going to tomorrow when he knows I’m trying to hurry to finish blogging). And there’s nothing nice about the way Adam wakes up. But he doesn’t spit up (much) and he’s mastered the bathroom (including putting the seat back down), so I guess I can’t complain too much.

And I don’t mean the TV show that I adored way back when (what girl didn’t want to be Jo!). I mean the honest-to-goodness facts of life. Doodles, obviously, has many, many years before he needs this kind of information. But when he does, I’m so happy there are sites like this out there for him.

One of Adam’s fraternity buddies’ daughters has her first birthday this coming weekend. A few of us got together last weekend to wish her a happy birthday. I told Adam to buy a present for her. Oh, he was so proud of himself. He came back with something he saw at a friend’s house a while ago: this book. “Are you serious?” I asked him. “You do know that this is a present for the baby, not his father.” “No, no,” he said. “It’s perfect. They’ll love it.” Right. Anyway, I let him give her the book. But I also bought her a toy from me and Doodles. Guess which present was more of a hit with the parents? Of course, the baby was happiest chewing on the birthday card. We should have just gotten her a stack of cardboard.

Doodles has gone from hating food to being a bottomless pit. Gerber says that Doodles needs to be eating five servings of fruits and veggies a day, which is the equivalent of two and a half jars of food a day. The doctor said we should just keep feeding Doodles until he doesn’t want anymore. “He’ll stop opening his mouth, turn his head away, or do something to signal to you that he’s done.” On Sunday night, I put him in the high chair, and fed him his bowl of cereal with half a jar of bananas mixed in. Then I fed him some sweet potatoes (homemade–the equivalent, probably of about a jar) and a half a jar of peas. That little mouth kept bobbing open for more. So I gave him the other half of the jar. Bob, bob, bob. So I opened some carrots and gave him some. Bob, bob, bob. After three and a half jars of food plus the cereal, his little mouth was still going and I started worrying that either my child was too dumb too know when he’s full or he has a thyroid problem. I cut him off for the night and put him on the breast, which he gobbled at as if he hadn’t eaten in days. I was hoping to have a quarterback in the family, but it looks like I’m going to have a linebacker. I won’t even mention what the solids do to his spit-up and poop. Yuck!

Every year HBS puts out a Survival Guide for incoming students. When I initially read it, I was horrified (see under Married Life here). Well, they’re looking for volunteers to write pieces for the next guide (such as Female Partner Perspective, An International Perspective, A Two-Year Career, Choosing a School for your Child, etc.). When the announcement went out, I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut. However, we got a second e-mail this morning saying that most of the essays had been claimed but… a Female Perspective still needed a writer. I figured it was fate, so I claimed it. Now, to tell the world what it’s like to be a female partner in 500 to 1000 words. Heh heh. I think I’m up for the challenge.

So, while I refer to Doodles as Doodles in this blog, in real life, that name has been pretty much been tossed to the wayside. It still comes out occasionally, but I just as often call him Bugs, Squirmy Wormy, or, my favorite, Monkey. Many of the books I’ve read said that name recognition starts about now so every so often I call him by his actual name. Zilch. Today, I tried it again and got nothing. But when I called out, “Hey Monkey Man!” he looked up from his toy, right into my eyes. I think I may have to start referring to him by his given name a bit more often.