the pieces of my life

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.

Yeah, I don’t either. Because it’s certainly not Doodles. He doesn’t like applesauce or cereal or carrots or sweet potatoes. The only way to get him to open his mouth even a smidgen is for me to jump around like an idiot until he cracks a grin, and then Adam shoves the food in. All Doodles really likes is the boob. I think this kid is ready for college.

• Those little teeth! So small. So white. So many tears! God bless grape-flavored Infant Tylenol (and cherry just doesn’t do it).
  
• Why did they bother making a Scooby Doo 2?
  
• Generally I prefer running sans music, however, lately I’ve found it a necessity. Because the only thing worse than running with a kid’s song in your head (“Fuzzy and blue (and orange). We’re all fuzzy and blue (and orange)”) is running with the music from a toy in your head (“Hello lion in the African sun. Tickling your mane is really fun”).
  
• The Academy Awards are simply no fun when you’ve seen only two of all the nominated films.
  
• Doodles sits! By himself! For minutes at a time. That’s progress.
  
• Separation anxiety: flattering for me? Or a new way for my darling child to keep me prisoner in my own home?
  
• What’s cuter than your child holding on for dear life as he hunches dangerously over on the baby swing in the park as his parents push? Actually, he seemed to like the swing. But not as much as putting the sand from the sandbox in his mouth.
  
• For a child who doesn’t like to eat solids, he’s certainly pooping like he’s been eating solids. Oh my, has it turned deadly in the nursery!

While I’m terrified of invoking the blog jinx, I would like us to hail the great and all-powerful Ferber. On Saturday night, one of the Brown/Medros family got a full night’s sleep and it was… Doodles!

We tried Ferberizing for the first time on Tuesday night, with the strong encouragement of our pediatrician. On Monday night the boy had kept me up all night using me as his human pacifier, and I’d reached the end of my sleep-deprivation rope. So Tuesday, he was on his own. It was an ugly night. An hour crying when we put him to bed. An hour at 11 p.m. An hour at 3 a.m. I was pretty near tears myself. Then, on Wednesday, Doodles had a reaction to one of his vaccinations (his highest fever yet: 104.1), so we had him in our bed to facilitate ’round the clock feedings (to keep him hydrated). He didn’t seem completely better on Thursday, so again, he stayed with us. So we tried again on Friday, essentially starting over. Oy, it was a hellish night. I hadn’t realized that Tuesday night had actually been a good night. Doodles essentially cried from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m., with Adam and I alternating going in at five-minute intervals to pat him and tell him he’s doing just fine. I was dreading Saturday night. Ferber says it generally takes three nights for the training to start to kick in, and I knew that Friday counted as night one, as we had let Doodles in our bed those two nights, thereby erasing our good work.

We put him down Saturday evening at about 8:30, and with just the tiniest bit of fussing, he fell right to sleep. Normally, he wakes up at 11 and then again at about 3. I waited for the 11 o’clock scream, and sure enough, at 11 there was this little whimper that ended before I even got out of bed (yes, we’re lame–Adam and I were in bed at 9:30 on Saturday night). I woke at about 2:30 a.m. and thought, “Okay, the cries are going to start any second now.” So I waited. And waited. And then I woke up Adam to go check on Doodles, to make sure he was still breathing (I’m convinced he can smell the breastmilk when I get close, and I didn’t want to start him off–at least, that’s what I tell Adam). At around 3:15, there was a whimper that again ended quickly. So I waited some more. By this time, I was wide awake, straining to hear every peep from his room. I sent Adam back in a few more times to make sure Doodles was still breathing. At 5 a.m., there were a few more whimpers that petered out back into sleep and he awoke for the day at 6:45. Total sleep Doodles: 10 hours. Total sleep Adam: 7 hours. Total sleep for a very neurotic Jenny: 3 hours. I was more tired on Sunday than I had been on the days that Doodles was sleeping with us and nursing every two hours. But Doodles, Doodles appears to have been successfully Ferberized. And now I need to relearn how to sleep.