Monthly Archives: January 2011

Ma-ma po-poker face

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I’d read that if you want your child to start saying mama and dada as some of their early words, you need to refer to yourself in the third person (lest they think your name is “I”). Yesterday afternoon, 80 began saying mama like a switch had been flipped. Personally, I think it’s because we were hanging out with Tanya Donnelly, and she inspires awesomeness.

I’ve also read that you child has to say a word three times in a reasonable context (not saying “mama” while pointing at the cat) for it to be a word. 80’s been saying ma-ma more than any other sound in the last 24 hours, and I’m encouraging her of course.

80: “Ma-ma! Ma-ma. Ma-MA.”

Me: “Yes! Yes! Yup, that’s me. That’s right.”

We’ll see if it sticks. Next up: dada. She’s been able to say the “ma” and “da” sounds for a while, so hopefully she picks it up soon.

I mention it in the video, but I swear she said “gesundheit”. Please don’t leave a comment saying it’s unlikely. I realize it’s unlikely, and I also want to mention again that I swear that’s what I heard.

I’m also now singing all the songs I can think of with ma-ma in them. Bohemian Rhapsody (“mama, just killed a man”), Poker Face (ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma ma-ma poker face). Any others I should add to my repertoire?

Gentle. GENTLE!

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80’s been eating adult food (non-pureed solid food, you sicko) for a month and a half now. It’s taking me a while to figure out BLW. She’d been cramming entire “sticks” of food in her mouth, so I started giving her smaller sticks of food (which works, because she’s gotten the fine motor skills to hold them … mostly). She’d just stick more smaller sticks of food in her mouth, creating the same traffic jam, just in more chokeable chunks. Today I had cut up apple into 1/16th sticks, and left a quarter for myself. I was feeling playful, and offered it to 80 (I bit off the skin around the edges so it wasn’t … so she couldn’t … you know, get a paper cut with the skin. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen, but I’m a little short on sleep.)

She LOVED IT. This is what she’s wanted all along. She happily gnawed on the apple (both soft side and skin side) for a good long while. She cried when I took it away (she’d been rubbing her eyes so furiously, I knew we needed to get her cleaned up and on to napping pronto). The look in this picture is her “extreme pleasure” face.

The big lesson is that the baby-led weaning book I love (Baby-Led Weaning: helping your baby to love good food)* really does know what they’re talking about. There’s a picture of a baby nomming on a whole apple, and I thought “yeah, maybe in a few months”.

Also, I remember my friends Abby and Sara having to keep apples on hand at all times, when their son would nom on a whole one for a snack every day. They’d have to keep track, so the chewed-on apple didn’t end up forgotten under his bed, since he took it to play with him all over their house.

The word “apple”, much like the word “fork” will become hilarious as 80 learns to say them, and yet sounds more like she’s swearing a blue streak. Remind me to take a video of her narrating eating an apple with a fork.

*which is now “translated” into American English, so courgette becomes zucchini and spello-tape becomes Scotch tape. One of the authors left a comment here, to let me know.



Gentle. GENTLE!, originally uploaded by sundaykofax.

BLW update

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80’s been eating adult food (non-pureed solid food, you sicko) for a month and a half now. It’s taking me a while to figure out BLW. She’d been cramming entire “sticks” of food in her mouth, so I started giving her smaller sticks of food (which works, because she’s gotten the fine motor skills to hold them … mostly). She’d just stick more smaller sticks of food in her mouth, creating the same traffic jam, just in more chokeable chunks. Today I had cut up apple into 1/16th sticks, and left a quarter for myself. I was feeling playful, and offered it to 80 (I bit off the skin around the edges so it wasn’t … so she couldn’t … you know, get a paper cut with the skin. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t happen, but I’m a little short on sleep.)

She LOVED IT. This is what she’s wanted all along. She happily gnawed on the apple (both soft side and skin side) for a good long while. She cried when I took it away (she’d been rubbing her eyes so furiously, I knew we needed to get her cleaned up and on to napping pronto). The look in this picture is her “extreme pleasure” face.

The big lesson is that the baby-led weaning book I love (Baby-Led Weaning: helping your baby to love good food)* really does know what they’re talking about. There’s a picture of a baby nomming on a whole apple, and I thought “yeah, maybe in a few months”.

Also, I remember my friends Abby and Sara having to keep apples on hand at all times, when their son would nom on a whole one for a snack every day. They’d have to keep track, so the chewed-on apple didn’t end up forgotten under his bed, since he took it to play with him all over their house.

The word “apple”, much like the word “fork” will become hilarious as 80 learns to say them, and yet sounds more like she’s swearing a blue streak. Remind me to take a video of her narrating eating an apple with a fork.

*which is now “translated” into American English, so courgette becomes zucchini and spello-tape becomes Scotch tape. One of the authors left a comment here, to let me know.

Happy 2/3rds old, 80!

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8 months old. Wowzer.

Al came to visit, so we showed 80 how to go out for brunch. Al and 80 played peekaboo with the paper tablecloth until somebody started eating it.

80 can army crawl, babble, eat solid food, sit up (but not pull herself up), stand while holding on to the couch, use her cute little opposable thumb and finger to pick up things, and I’m pretty sure she’s saying dada and kitty, although I think on the safe side, we’ll say it’s coincidence. She’s yet to defy us.

She’s also started getting up in the middle of the night to nurse and play for an hour–I have some reading to do about that.

Soap: nope

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I am experimenting with using no soap. No shampoo (or conditioner), no face cleanser, no body wash, bar soap, not even deodorant or moisturizer, nothing. I bet you’re thinking “She just went of the deep end of the hippie pool.”

I don’t want to be a smelly hippie. I read this blog post on BoingBoing, about one of the contributors trying out the no soap thing for 18 months (and counting). What drew me to the idea was the personal experiment angle, and the logic seemed like it could be sound. I think my body knows what it’s doing, and am willing to find out. Also, I’m lazy.

This no soap thing is part of the paleolithic lifestyle idea — basically that our bodies haven’t evolved that much since caveman times, and we didn’t have soap then. The New York Times article I linked to is more about the paleo diet, which I have no interest in following, since I’m fairly certain my body’s adapted to eating cheese (seriously1).

Right, back to not using soap. I feel I need to mention, and in fact pull out the bold type, I’m still showering. I’m showering every day, thanks. It’s not that I’m not bathing, it’s that I’m not using soap to do so. (I am using soap to wash my hands after changing diapers, before preparing food, and the like.)

I wasn’t so much concerned about the cleanliness of rest of my body as I was my hair. Having done a fair share of camping and living at a camp, I’m familiar with my hair’s ability to get stringy and gross after 2 days of inactivity, or 1 day of moderate activity. I’ve gone 3-4 days without showering before, and so I was prepared for my hair to be pretty gross.

The last time I used soap was on January 4th. I read the afore-mentioned BoingBoing post, and decided it would be a fun experiment to try immediately. Here’s what happened:

January 5th: I normally shower every other day, so this day was my usual not-shower day.

January 6: I showered, but instead of shampooing, conditioning, soaping various nether regions, then using face cleanser, I spent time massaging my scalp with my fingers, and using a washcloth and hot water all over my body. I noticed that I lost a lot less hair (I usually lose a lot of hair each time I shower), and my hair felt greasy as I stepped out of the shower. Other than my hair, I felt clean. Once my hair dried (I don’t use a hair dryer) it was kind of greasy. Had I needed to go to a professional job, I would have been embarrassed, but not so greasy that it bothered me at home. I didn’t notice any bad smell (and I’m very aware of my BO, as is my partner — he promised to let me know if I got stinky.)

January 7-8th: I couldn’t get my hair super clean, but it was cleaner than not showering at all. The greasy level was only increasing a little. My hair was super soft.

January 9th: This was the apex of the greasy hair. This whole time, my body didn’t get smelly, my skin didn’t get overly dry or oily. It was only my hair that was a problem. Admittedly, I’d also spend most of my showering time on my hair, shampooing and conditioning it. This was the 5th day, and my hair felt heavy and matted (not in a tangled sense, but clumped together). I wore a bandanna, and went to the computer for some more research. From what I read, you can go cold turkey — the benefit of this is your body adjusts quickly to the change in oil production. You can also wean yourself off soap, which is probably what I’d have done if I needed to be in public more. Another option was a baking soda scrub of the hair, followed by a vinegar rinse. Awesome. That’s what I was looking for — something to help wash out the oil buildup without going back to shampoo. I did use a small amount of conditioner to shave my armpits.

January 10th: I poured about a quarter cup of baking soda into my hand, added some shower sprinkles of water, and rubbed it into my hair. I added another tablespoon or so, just to make sure I was getting it in everywhere. I rinsed it out, then poured vinegar into my hair and massaged that around. I could tell it made a difference, but it wasn’t until my hair dried that I realized just how much. I was through the gauntlet! My hair looked like I had shampooed it, and was softer than ever.

January 11th: Same baking soda/vinegar treatment. Worked the same as January 10th.

January 12th: Decided to try just water, no baking soda or vinegar. Hair was a little greasy, but definitely within normal limits. Told my upstairs neighbor about my experiment, and she couldn’t believe it, especially after touching my hair.

January 13th (today): Used baking soda and vinegar again, in hopes of having completely clean hair. I do, and it’s very soft.I keep petting it. I’m losing WAY less hair during each shower. I’m not sure how to explain this without making you feel a little ill, but let’s say I used to lose approximately a cat-fight fistful of hair every shower. Now I lose a meager 3-4 strands.

I’m not sure if I can get away from the baking soda and vinegar treatment, to water only. I think I need to give my body more time to acclimate. I’m also not sure what will happen when I try going two days without showering. I’ll update when I have more data points.

My favorite thing about this is the experimentation. I’ve been taking notes, so I could write this post. I also like that I can stop angsting about whether to buy cheap crappy shampoo, or expensive shampoo that maybe doesn’t have parabens and maybe works better, but maybe not, but does cost 10x more than Suave.

From blog post & comments I’ve read of others trying it, it seems like the no-soap thing works well for some, and can be modified to work for others. As with many fads, there are those who are getting fanatical. I think it’s worth trying, especially if you feel that a change might help a hair/skin problem (even if it’s counterintuitive that less soap would help oily skin or hair), especially if you can get days 4-5 of your acclimation period to land on a weekend. Or if you’re lazy.

I’m sorry I didn’t take pictures of my gross hair days. Now my hair is the same as before, with fewer products and less fuss, so I’m not going to bother adding one. Plus, 80 just woke up. Time to go clean her critical areas.

1 I read that my ancestry has provided me with the ability to eat cheese, and eat cheese I will.

How to: make baby pants out of a sweater

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I went to the thrift store looking for soft wool sweaters to turn into longies (wool pants to go over diapers). The great thing about what I was looking for is that often, crappy sweaters from Old Navy end up getting felted when washed, and then donated to a thrift store. Normally, this means sweaters I have to sort through to find the good ones. In this case, it doesn’t matter! In fact, it could be kind of nice, since the fabric would be denser.

I basically winged this pattern, but it turned out great (and took seriously a half hour to make). I found a turtleneck sweater made of wool and mohair. I cut off the turtleneck, and the bottom of the sleeves.1 I guessed at how long to make the legs — I figured extra long isn’t bad for a baby who has long legs to begin with, and who is crawling (and doesn’t need to worry about stepping on her pants). If I had a walking baby, I’d consider tacking up the cuffs, so I could let them down as she grew.

IMG_0262

I sewed the two legs together at the crotch, about 3 inches. I then pinned the legs to the top (using the cut end of the legs and the cut end of the turtleneck), making sure the fabric was even all the way around.2 I sewed all the way around the legs/turtleneck.

Lastly, I folded the top of the turtleneck down 3/4″ and sewed almost all the way around it (with a 1/4″ seam allowance) — leaving a small gap so I could thread elastic through. I adjusted the elastic until it was snug enough to keep the pants up but not to snug as to bother, and sewed the ends of the elastic together, then sewed up the gap in the seam.

Voila.

1 This meant that I was using finished edges at the top and bottom of the pants, and didn’t have to worry about sewing the seams well enough so they didn’t unravel.
2 Since the turtleneck was ribbed and the legs were stockinette stitch, I had to kind of stretch out the top while pinning the legs. It looked a little bunchy and weird, but looked fine once they were sewn up.

Baby arm warmers

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indeed. by sundaykofax, on Flickr” href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/sundaykofax/5325523129/”>Tiny thumb hole, indeed.Full credit for this pattern and idea go to Eidolons’s blog post and pattern. Her baby chews sleeves, my baby can’t doesn’t have enough sleeve to chew. Either way, baby arm warms save the day.

80 is a long, tall drink of milk. All of the sleeves of her shirts and onesies are too short. She looks like she’s always heading to a clam dig, wearing three quarter sleeves and capris. Since we live in a northern climate, having bare wrists in winter is not something I’m willing to live with. Thus, the baby arm warmers.

Baby arm warmers!Arm warmers are probably the second-most easy thing to knit (outside of a scarf), and BABY arm warmers are even better because they’re small and are quick to knit. It’s like knitting a hat you don’t have to do any decreases on, and you get to use up small amounts of yarn that are curled up in the bottom of your stash.

I used sport-weight yarn, and did 36 stitches in a k2, p2 rib. The yarn is KnitPicks Stroll in Heath Multi.

I added thumb holes, but they turn out not to be necessary for indoors. I think I’d put the thumbhole in effect if I was then going to put mittens on her.

Baby-led weaning in action

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Here’s a video of 80 having lunch. It’s not actually that exciting, but I thought it would be good for someone who was skeptical (as I often am).

Ask any questions about BLW in the comments — and anyone else who is doing this, let me know if you have other tips.

Baby-led Weaning

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I had read about baby-led weaning (BLW for short) at moms4mom.com when researching the whole “eating food” thing. The description by a parent made it sound like you feed them solid solid food (not purees) from the get-go. At first I was confused by the name, since weaning was not what I was looking to do. It’s kind of badly named — I’d call it baby-led feeding.

I read a little bit more online, about the idea. Right now in the US, the conventional first foods for a baby are soupy grain cereals and vegetable purees. Outside of the US, and historically, this has not been the case.

I was excited about the idea of it because it’s apparent that 80 is into eating, and we haven’t had any trouble with her wanting to try new food, gagging on the purees we’d been giving her, or anything else that would be a sign that this wouldn’t be a good idea.

In fact, one big reason why I was so excited is that the babies feed themselves. 80 is acting so independent, and wasn’t very happy being fed. She’d tolerate it at the beginning, but by the middle of the feeding she’d grab at the spoon. It’s amazing how fast her reflexes are, which meant she would have her hand (or hands) around the spoon, and I’d be saying “let go, please” in my nice voice while prying her little fingers off it. This did not make her happy. So then we’d have a crying, frustrated girl, and I’m trying to give her more food ON THE VERY SPOON I’D JUST TAKEN AWAY. It reminded me of that meme crying while eating.

I didn’t find a comprehensive explanation online, so resolved to see if the library had a book on it. I asked at the weekly mom meet-up we have on Friday afternoons, and one of the moms offered to lend me the book she had. Perfect! It’s Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett.

Basically, the idea is that babies are capable of eating on their own, because their tongue-thrust reflex keeps them from eating before they’re ready, and the gag reflex helps to teach them how far they can put food into their mouths. It takes some courage to just hand your baby a “stick” of food, since we’re told not to let them near anything they could take a bite out of. The only other unpleasant part of starting BLW was freaking out about 80 gagging on food.

The gag reflex is awesome — it lets 80 know when she’s crammed that banana too far into her mouth. It’s just that she then make the “gork gork” noise, and Jason and I jump from our chairs and stare at her with our arms out to the side like we’re ready to tackle her. Just like the book said, she’d gag a bit, spit out the food, then calmly continue eating. All babies are going to do this, even if they’re eating purees. The book goes over in great detail how to handle gagging and choking (which is less likely to happen). 80 hasn’t choked once, but she’s gagged maybe three times — not recently though.

BLW is said to be messy, since your kidlet has access to all the food, but I found purees to be just as messy, since they’re basically food paint.

The big thing on what to feed your baby is that you should be offering them food from your plate, and eating together. Outside of the big no-nos (honey, salt, nuts, peanuts, dairy), you can feed your kid anything. It’s a little hard to wrap my brain around, since we’ve been in a pureed vegetables culture for so long, but once I finished the book, and started offering 80 some different things, it got a lot easier to imagine what I could feed her from my plate.

A side benefit is that you end up eating healthier! It’s hard for me not to eat salt, so this is an excellent exercise in moderation.

I’m going to give you a list of what 80’s eaten so far, but bear in mind that the point is not that she’s ingest much (if any) of all of the foods. The point is that she’s practicing eating for when she’ll need the calories.

Since we’ve started, 80’s eaten sticks of avocado, apple, carrot (baked and peeled first, so it’s solid but not crunchy), potato, rice cake (I found regular old plain rice cakes broken into sticks work better and are cheaper than the baby versions), kale (from a soup), lettuce (she mostly gummed it and didn’t eat any), chicken breast, grapefruit, lemon, and she’s moved on to eating the standard “O”. I looked at Cascadian Farms version of Cheerios, but they had way more sugar. Turns out Cheerios (or their generic equivalent) have the lowest sugar — 1g per serving. Os are great, since they are the perfect shape for little chubby hands. It’s an excellent exercise in the pincer grasp, and it keeps 80 amused for a long time. We brought Os on the plane to NC last week, and she’d pick one from our hand and work on getting it to her mouth — and then we’d put another in our hand for her to take. Not messy on her face or clothes, tiny snack, not hard to clean up even if she got it all soggy and it ended up on the floor, and it was a good way to pass time.

I’d suggest the book I read — it’s well written, it has a nice balance of historical information, reasons to BLW with reasonable encouragement (not making you feel like you’re signing up for a cult), and lots of suggestions for foods.

The only downside for me was that it’s British, and I had to look up what a rusk was, as well as try to remember the American words for aubergine and courgette.

If you’re not a fan of personal stories (they are in all the baby books I read), you can just skip them. In fact, if you don’t care about the history of feeding babies, you can just skip to chapter 4 where it gets down to the nitty gritty.

Eating food! (pause) Oh.

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Right before Thanksgiving, we started feeding 80 … food. It seems redundant to say feeding food, but up until this point, she’d only had breast milk and formula.1. We decided 80 was ready for food because she’d been staring at us eating in front of her and my impression was that she thought it looked like fun, she was sitting up well, and she generally seemed game to try new experiences.

Wearing a bib, ready to go.

I’d read a while ago about what to feed babies, and at the 6mo checkup, our doctor reminded us about the things NOT to feed babies until they’re older. You might find it surprising what’s not OK: honey, peanut butter or peanuts, any dairy, salt, sugar (everything I love, basically). I checked my favorite parenting site Moms4Mom to see what other parents have opined about what to feed your 6mo.

I knew the basics, but was surprised to find out about feeding theories that weren’t covered in the books I had read. I had come to the site to find out if I should start with rice cereal with breastmilk, or some sort of vegetable. I wasn’t expecting to find anything else. I settled on rice cereal as 80’s first food, because it is iron fortified, and at 6 months there isn’t much else she needs other than breastmilk.

The other feeding theory had caught my eye. At the time, I was impatient to start in on the food, and didn’t want to wait, so I made a mental note to look it up later.

I also read about other good first foods, things that are easily gummed. I decided that 80 should also try avocado, because I find it so incredibly delicious. Plus, as Keem says, “It’s the cheese of the vegetable kingdom.” So we sat down to try eating.

And it was awesome! The rice cereal was mostly milk, and 80 slurped it down. There was no pushing it out of her mouth with her tongue (this being a reflex that younger babies have, and a good indicator that they’re not ready for food yet), and not that much mess … until she realized that the spoon was the food vehicle. Then it was not so awesome. She wanted to hold the spoooooooon. Why couldn’t she just hold the spoooooooon? (Answer: because she would gnaw on it, not give it back for a refill, and couldn’t get it into her mouth without rotating it so all the cereal fell off.)

But whatever, it was eating food! This meant the eventual freedom of my boobs.2 It meant new adventures.

Within 24 hours, I was reminded of the other aspect to starting solid foods. The poop. I’d forgotten that it changes, even though everyone who’s had a baby talks about it. I wouldn’t have been so excited about food if I’d remembered. I now understand why people get a Diaper Genie.

See, breastmilk poop doesn’t smell that bad at all. I think it smells vaguely like bagels. It’s a subtle odor. Everything-else poop is wow. Like adult poop.

We realized we’d need to start using a sprayer or liners with her cloth diapers. The trash can in her room was suddenly smelly. My favorite baby book ever, Be Prepared, suggests having a trash can outside the window, and dropping diapers out the window into the trash can below. I seriously considered it.3

What can be done about this new development in diapers? Nothing. As long as we keep feeding her food, her poop is going to stink just like everybody else. Perhaps we could just feed her roses.

Next up, I’ll explain moving from shoving gruel into my angry baby’s mouth, to the much more fun Baby-led Weaning!

1. We gave her formula the first week of her life, as a means to flush out the jaundice she had.
2. This was a bigger thing than just having my boobs to myself again. I have a low-level amount of worry that 80 will be hungry and I won’t be around.
3. I’m sure the other condo owners are glad I didn’t.