Breastfeeding Basics

These are pretty basic nursing instructions, and they're also from the '80s (I think), but they could still be helpful. I had a lot of younger siblings that I saw being breastfed, but when the time came I still wanted to compare someone else's baby's latch to mine. These do show several latchin' babies, so I found them helpful. There are three different positions described here: cradle hold, clutch (or "football") hold, and lying down.

I recommend learning to nurse lying down ASAP! For us it made the difference of being able to sleep most of the night, right away, versus having to awake fully and get up five or six times. (Of course look up safe cosleeping practices if you're going to do this.)

Cradle Hold



Clutch Hold



Lying Down Cradle Hold

snowday_4

snowday_4
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

Limelet got to play in the snow for the first time today. He did see snow last year, but wasn't really old enough to play in it yet. He needs some boots, 'cause his little feets got wet. We only had him outside maybe 15 minutes, though.

He now pushes the pegs through his little wooden hammer bench, and imitates the animal sounds that various of his toys make. A lot of them growl, apparently, but not the kitty or the birdie.

He also has a little plastic boombox that plays one electronic song when he presses a button, to which he dances. The other buttons are broken, and only beep loudly when he presses them. He imitates the beeping as a growl, too.

Capitalist Peeg

That would be me.

I'm trying out the adsense gimmick, as you can see. If you hate it, let me know. I guess I'm really doing it just to try another internet thingy out as is my wont.

After all, I'm clearly not some wildly popular web writer, so it's not like it will generate much if any revenue.

And while as a family of three we're not exactly flush with the cash that my internship is bringing in, we're not desperate for the four cents or whatever, either. I just want to see what happens, and I'm so used to tuning out ads now that I've had Gmail for several years that it doesn't seem like it will matter that much.

Feeding Time

Lately Limelet has taken to feeding us. He seems to find it very entertaining to see food items disappear into our mouths. (Luckily for us, they are food items.) Often this involves sticking a lot of his hand in there, sometimes his entire fist. I think we should stay away from the zoo for now.

Yesterday he had a fine squishy piece of buttered toast upon which he was gnawing sporadically that he decided Daddy should eat, and he started on the long 6-foot journey across the carpet to the couch. But in a surprise move, he quite suddenly stopped and fed the toast to this picture in a catalog on the floor instead.

Night-night

Limelet is walking like crazy now, especially if there's any opportunity to kick a ball.  We usually have at least three rolling around the living room somewhere.  I'd always heard that kids sleep better at night when they begin crawling, and then I heard it's when they begin walking.  The next thing I'll hear is that it's when they start driving, which is too bad, since at that point I will definitely be sleeping poorly, right?

 

Anyway, with all these teeth erupting, poor Limelet does not sleep better.  He does go to sleep, which is a change from when it was 100 degrees here.  But he often awakes at 11:30, 1:50, and 3:50.  Just by way of example.  He may struggle to get back to sleep for 90 minutes, or he may just nurse and go back to sleep almost immediately.  Oh, how I love those nights when he goes back to sleep immediately.

 

He's actually had two good nights in the past three.  The first one, I couldn't believe it when I looked at the clock at his first awakening, and it was 4:30!  He actually slept nearly 8 hours straight without even stirring to nurse!  Then there was the night in between, during which he awoke at 11:00 (one hour after I dropped, exhausted, into bed myself), and writhed miserably half-asleep in my arms until nearly 2.  And then woke again at 3:50.  But last night, once again he hardly awoke at all--just a couple times, and went right back to sleep.  It was like a beautiful dream.  Heck, it was a beautiful dream!

 

When I'm able to catch a glimpse of the teeth, they're like big vicious pointy white mountain ranges jabbing out through his tiny, tender little reddened gums.  They really do seem too big for his mouth, and all of them have several separate points, like a jagged crown. 

 

I feel terrible for how irritable I am in the middle of the night, as he's miserable too.  I have written myself post-its reminding myself to be understanding in the middle of the night when I'm tired, so I don't make things worse for both of us.  I don't want his memories of waking up in the middle of the night to be having a Mummy who was a huge mean B.

laundry_1

laundry_1
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

Daddy started singing the Oompa-Loompa song about these blue clothes, which got stuck in my head so I sang it as we walked out to the laundry.

Me: "Oompa, loompa, doompa da dee..."
Limelet: "Opa."

Too funny.

halloween_2

halloween_2
Originally uploaded by doctorlizardo

Happy to be taking baby Motrin?

Big Boy

Limelet has been undergoing a lot of developmental leaps in the month since he turned one.

He was having a dickens of a time sleeping for a while last week, which was very hard for me (sleep three hours and then be gone at work for 11 hours!); I suspected he was teething again. Drooling a lot, biting me in his sleep, gums thickened (like teeth were inside them, instead of just being a thin ridge), constant sleep waking that was alleviated only on nights when I gave him Motrin...all circumstantial, but telling. TheLimey bemoaned the lack of any visible teeth as reward for all this upheaval.

But last weekend, I was finally able to see the points of two top molars back there in his little gums (when I leaned him upside down and made him laugh). And the next day, TheLimey saw two more teeth on the bottom gums. So I guess that means he has 12 teeth now. More are still coming through; perhaps he'll be done by the time he's 18 months! (Arbitrarily chosen age.)

When his teeth are noticeably growing, he's always been going through a growth spurt in general (teeth being just a part of his growing body, of course) so he's outgrowing some of his clothes. He's now wearing size 2T (or 24 months), and some of that is pretty close-fitting on him. People comment on his tallness all the time.

He's also mimicking our speech like crazy these days. He especially likes to sing along with the familiar songs I sing for him (such as the "Limelet and Mama" song, which has only those two words and is sung to the tune of Old King Wenceslas), and also some Kate Bush. He says "mmmmgud" when he's eating something he likes, says "baba dadi" when Daddy goes somewhere, and of course "bowiss" or just "dhish" ("play with this" or "this") while making the "play with" sign at some forbidden item, such as the fire extinguisher. He's especially good with "B" words, such as "bathtime", "ball", and "book". He's also mastered "nonononono" which refers to anything he wants that he thinks he can't have.

He's been taking a few steps here and there lately--and of course creeping around the perimeter of the livingroom while leaning on the wall, table, or sofa--but hasn't been wanting to commit himself to actually walking outright. His first actual step (that I know about) was at the first birthday party of his little pal Justin--a big festive affair, since the first birthday is a big huge deal in Korean culture as I understand it. Justin was toddling all over the place when we were there, but Limelet maintained his crawling except for that one step.

Until yesterday, when he suddenly decided that if he was going to kick a ball around with Daddy, he would need to walk over to it. So apparently yesterday he spent a lot of the day walking around the livingroom, kicking the many balls littering the floor. I can't tell you how proud TheLimey is that he actually got to kick a football with his son. I had a feeling that the walking thing would be sudden, since he had all the skills and had been practicing them. Seemed like just a matter of feeling ready to let go and do it, and it was.

I took some Halloween pictures of him (the whole reason I bought a hunter-orange nappy in that last batch), but I haven't yet had a chance to download them.