Annoying toys

Husband and I make a point of not buying Loud Baby too many toys.
When we do get her something, it is usually a toy that should last her a couple of years.
Like blocks. Legos. The learning-home. Stuff like that.

And then there are gift givers.
Well-meaning destructive people.
Actually, there are 3 categories of gift-givers.

1. The ones who just know what to give.
Because they have experience.
Or are just plain smart.

2. The ones who ask.
I love these guys.

My answer is usually books.
Loud Baby is a bookworm.

 3. And of course, there's the majority: people who buy the cutest, loudest, most useless thing.
I do appreciate the thoughtfulness.
Maybe some kids would love the super annoying colourful guitar that makes defeaning noise.
But what am I supposed to do with all this crap?
Loud Baby is interested in this kind of toy for maybe 5 minutes and that's it.
And the pile grows.
And grows.
And she still sticks with her blocks and the tea set.
So I'm just going to donate it all.

Here are some priceless pieces:

• A Jerry mouse with creepy big eyes that sings Yankee-Doodle in a high-pitched "I want to jump out the window" voice.
• A doll that laughs. Like it's possessed. Seriously, Chucky needs to take lessons. 
• The aforementioned guitar. So cheap, half the buttons don't work from the start. The written text on the box says: "Guitar Interesting. Child love will music playing. Look for products another colors". Wha? It plays timeless classics like "Happy Birthday" and other melodies which cannot be identified due to too much distortion. But heck it's loud, and that's the whole point, right?
• Rattles. Really? The child is 14 months old, not 4 weeks.
• Cuddly toys. I still have quite a few from my own childhood that I can pass on. We do not need any more cuddly ones. There is no space. And no point. Loud Baby has 2 favourites so far and she doesn't need more than 5. We are at 25 right now. Or feels like it.
• A wheel with four buttons. She pushed them a couple of times. That was it. They don't even do anything interesting except for indexing and making a short race car sound. Maybe if she was a boy?! I don't know.
• We did receive a set of cups. The colourful kind that fit into each other and on top of each other. Those are great. Except we already have a set. Which Loud Baby likes more. So this one is not getting played with all that much, poor thing. Its time will come, I am sure. 
• Big toys for riding. Some of which are nice in concept but the kid will ride it twice and be done with it and I just moved the sofa to make room for it. 

I can't stop thinking that instead of all this stuff, one could have given Loud Baby a present that she actually enjoys. (Again, I am grateful for all. I am just thinking practically here.)
Besides books there are puzzles, balls, sand toys, CD's with children's music, animal figurines, Little People, cars, wonderful wooden toys...or (gasp) gift cards.

Best gift ever so far?
The sentence: "I will watch her for an hour so you can sleep/eat/shower/take a walk".
Because there's no better gift for a child than a sane parent.
To anyone who has ever uttered this sentence or variation of it we say: Thank you!! :)

Ch-ch-changes

When you have a little one, certain topics that were pretty much tabu or gross before the baby, become part of everyday experience and conversation.

Stuff like poop, vomit, spit-up, drooling, boogers, chewed food, diarrhea...

As a Mommy, you simply become immune to it and you wonder why people give you the look when you smell your little one's tush in the park in order to detect poop or use saliva to wipe away dried-on cracker crumbs from their cheek

It's just the way it is.

Not glamorous.

But highly practical and quick.

And "practical" and "quick" is what you are aiming for 99% of the time with anything that involves resolving a problem with your toddler. 

In Mommy Land you're pretty much in charge of everything, including the yucky things.

You deal with poop multiple times a day, for example, and if you didn't get any on yourself, that's something to be happy about.

In fact, diaper changing evolves as baby grows.

Luckily, Loud Baby has always loved her changing table.

(Except for a brief period of time after she just learned to roll over. I had to improvise and change her while she was on her tummy. Challenging at first, easy after 2-3 attempts).

Back then the whole process seemed simple.

Put baby on table.

Open lower buttons of sleeper (she was in sleepers most of the time. Love those things).

Remove diaper.

Wipe ... area.

Put on new diaper.

Close buttons.

Done.

Nowadays, it's a different story.

First, when I know a diaper change is coming up I check the table to see if I have sufficient entertaining supplies at hand.

A simple plastic mouse is not enough.

That stuff needs to be interesting and distractive.

Preferably interactive.

And it also has to be restocked with new things periodically.

Like every 2 days.

Right now I am armed with:

a small board book;

a thermometer with two buttons that beep and colours light up on the screen;

a huge red pen with a cap;

an empty baby food pouch with a cap;

another simple thermometer that has a transparent box with a cap;

(yes, we are in the cap-phase)

a clean make-up brush;

a watch that doesn't work.

So after I make sure the selection of entertaining products is abundant, I go pick up baby.

This usually results in loud protests.

After all, I am interrupting.

So I give her the speech:

"I know you were having fun and I interrupted you. You are upset now. But we need to change diapey. After that Mommy will take you back to your toys".

I place her on the changing table and quickly give her one of the super-objects.

She might take that and  get busy.

Or she might throw it away.

Or she may point at another object from the basket of goodies.

And another one.

This might take awhile.

Still, most of the time she will settle on one or two.

This is my chance.

Operation quick-diapey-change begins:

remove pants;

open onesie;

remove diaper;

wipe;

wipe again;

provide new distraction object in between so as to...;

...make sure Loud Baby keeps her hands out of problem-zone;

(maybe sing a song to show Loud Baby how ...um...casual I am);

put on new diaper, preferably not backwards;

close onesie (if she begins stirring at this point I will settle with buttoning 2 out of 3 buttons).

Around this time Loud Baby is done.

She wants down.

If I am lucky, the diaper is in place.

So I put her down and toddle after her with the pants in my hands waiting for the right moment to put them on.

I usually succeed fairly quickly, while she is standing and looking at something.

All done.

Easy as
               1

               2

Where am I?

Since Loud Baby's decided to join our family of two, we have had quite a few sleeping arrangements.

In short, we went from co-sleeping to Loud Baby having her own bedroom and sleeping in her own crib.

With an extra bed/ugly mattress on the floor for night wakings where I can nurse her. 

We have also moved to a different state at a certain point.

And then traveled again to Loud Baby's grandparents to a different country where we are spending a couple of months.

That's a lot of different beds and mattresses and futons and couches. 

We have, however, religiously followed the bedtime routine we have worked so hard to establish over the months which involves dinner, story (optional), bath and nursing. Followed by placing Loud Baby in her crib.

When she wakes up during the night, I go to her.

Take her out of her crib.

Place her on the bed/mattress and nurse her back to sleep.

Return baby to crib.

Return zombie Mommy to her bedroom.

Or not.

Sometimes we both continue sleeping on the bed/mattress.

There are even times when I lie down with her for nursing and I wake up 45 minutes later and she's sleeping soundly. Still latched on. Great.

But more often than not, I wake up in my own bed thinking:

"Where am I again? Which bedroom? Which apartment? Which country?".

"Where's the baby?"

My eyes pop awake after realizing I don't remember if I returned her to her crib.

"Did I leave her on the bed and just walk out??"

"Is she right here all pancake-y because I have rolled over her?"

And then I focus and specifically recall picking her up horizontally as I always do and putting her down in her bed.

Ironically, the hardest part for me is returning to my own room.

There are no steps to climb.

No long corridors.

But everything is so complicated at night.

You need to turn around and then open the door.

And then close it.

Walk 6 steps.

Repeat thing with the door.

Crash into bed.

Pull on covers.

Resume sleep.

All the while fragments of the previous dream flash through my head.

I am awake but in a different way.

I begin a thought and finish with a different half of another idea.

Mutant thoughts, I call them.

Still, some ideas are quite good. 

Discussion worthy.

Of course, I remember nothing in the morning.

Except the exact number of times Loud Baby summoned me. 

Unless it's more than 3. Then it just seems like the whole process was an all-nighter and I probably ended up on the ugly mattress in the morning anyway.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parenting hallucinations

When I was pregnant with Loud Baby I was all bubbly.
Yes, one of those really annoying future-moms who is happy to be pregnant.
Who waddles all proud and smiley and enjoys the attention.
Who reads tons of pregnancy books. Blogs. Articles.
Takes childbirth classes.
Childcare classes. (There was one to be exact. Where you get the feeling that if you know how to swaddle an ugly plastic doll you have all the skills you need as a new parent).
Breastfeeding classes.
Who knows so much about birth, she could probably be a doula herself.
Ask me anytime about spinning babies, birth plans, the pros and cons of drugs during labor, pushing positions, vitamins and fish-oil, ways to speed up labor or induce it naturally, fetal monitoring, Penny Simkin, birth balls, delayed cord-clamping, skin-to-skin, signs of a good latch...I could go on and on.
I had it all figured out.
I was confident.
I knew what I wanted.
I was dellusional.

Here are some of my plans. And what actually happened (WAH).
Plan: Giving birth with zero drugs, all naturally, without interventions.
WAH: Sweet epidural. Worked perfectly. No bad consequences. (I did get it fairly late during the birth as recommended by some sources and I will always think that for me, it was the right thing.)

Plan: Having a skin-to-skin with the baby the moment she is born.
WAH: She came out all covered in poop. Screaming all the way. She needed a serious clean-up.

Plan: Focus on baby after birth. Start bonding.
WAH: I was hungry. Food first please, then baby. (Ok, we did cuddle a bit and I ate while she was given a bath but seriously, I was famished after all those hours.)

Plan: Keeping her in the room with me all the time (the Big Book says both mother and baby sleep better this way. To that I say: Hah!).
WAH: I did keep her with me. I couldn't sleep. Kept staring at her. Nice doctor lady said I should send her to the nursery and it would not make me a bad mother.
So I did.
Once. For two hours.
Probably the most sleep I got that first month.
Lesson learned.

Plan: Breastfeed exclusively.
WAH: Yep, that happened. Because she refused anything else later.

Plan: Do not use pacifier.
WAH: Yep, this happened too. But because Loud Baby has never accepted one, even when we tried for quite a long time. It's a good teether now, though.

Plan: At home, baby will sleep in her crib right next to us
(Haha, that's a good one!)
WAH: She slept with me. Daddy got stranded in the living room on a very bad futon. With the cat.

Plan: I will make my own baby food from organic ingredients.
WAH: Thank God for Gerber, Ella's Kitchen, Sprout and Earth's Best. I did make a couple of portions when I had the time and energy. A rare combination.

Plan: I will use cloth diapers after the first month or so.
WAH: I have exactly four cloth diapers. Taking down the laundry to the basement turned out to be a bigger inconvenience than what it seemed at first. Actually, going down with the hamper was pretty much my only break from momminess in the first months. A luxury.

Plan: I will be loving, patient and calm. (Oh gee).
WAH: I was exhausted, anxious, scared, crazy, confused and constantly thinking "This can't be right.".  

Now that the first year is over and done and Loud Baby is a toddler everything is different.
And I have a new set of plans.
In short, it consist of these two things: love the baby and do what it takes to enjoy the good moment and get through the bad one.

It's all measured in moments.

Dangerous statements

I am not a superstitious person. 

If a black cat crossed my path, I would probably pick her up and take her home.

(We have a black cat, actually. Fluffy spoiled furball thing).

I also really don't care if it's Friday the 13th. 

I'll be happy with the fact that the weekend is on and that's pretty much it. 

Anyway, you get my point.

That being said, Loud Baby does some pretty weird things. 

Well, one weird thing to be exact.

Whenever there is a difficult situation (longer car rides, bedtime routines etc.) and we make an observation about Loud Baby's good behaviour, she will begin crying that very instant.

If you don't believe me, you can ask Husband who is a scientist. 

He knows statistics and math and stuff. 

He is good with numbers.

He is freaked out.

I've decided to call these observations of positive conduct dangerous statements. 

A couple of examples:

Loud Baby needs to go to bed. I put her in her crib drowsy but awake (you know, the Big Sleep Book bla bla). 

I close the door. 

She makes one sound of protest.

I wait. And wait some more.

Minutes pass. 

Silence.

I finally decide to breathe and start happily thinking about a little "me" time. 

Hmm..what snack shall I make myself?

Husband  asks how it went with putting Loud Baby to bed.

"Quite well actually. She went down fast. No fuss".

Warning: Dangerous Sentence has been uttered. Activate Loud Crying Sequence. 

In other words, the minute I said what I said, she cries. 

It happens ALL the time. 

"Oh look, how well she's taking the car ride".

WAAAH!

"She's so peaceful today. Playing by herself. No trouble at all".

WAAAH!

"The baby's been asleep for almost 2 hours now. I will go lie down for a sec".

WAAAH! 

"The baby just fell asleep. Quick, I'll lie down for a sec".

WAAAH!

Yep, some of these dangerous sentences are only my thoughts. 

Not really uttered to anyone.

It doesn't matter, they still work. Spooky.

Most recent example:

Loud Baby is teething so she keeps waking up at night. 

After a couple of awakenings,I decide to give her a bit of Tylenol. 

I measure the dose and head to her room.

Silence.

I am afraid to think. 

I'll just wait. 

Still quiet.

An hour passes, I get busy with stuff but as I am going into the kitchen I notice the dispenser with the medicine on the counter. The Tylenol bottle right next to it.

I decide to put the little dose back into the bottle since Loud Baby didn't need it tonight.

I twist the cap on, thinking: "She is definitely asleep now. It's been more than an hour since her last awakening. Wait...I am thinking this now and...Nah, let's not go down crazy lane".

WAAAAH!

Sigh. Husband says we should do this within controlled circumstances. 

I am pretty sure it would not work then.

But I would be willing to give it a try!

Hugs,

Crazy Lady

Breastfeeding blues

Loud Baby is still nursing. She's been a good nurser from day one.

I was very much determined to breastfeed her from the beginning if I had the possibility. 

I took a course. 

I went for a breastfeeding session after she was born.

I was ... too  fierce in my determination. 

So fierce, in fact, that Loud Baby has never ever accepted a bottle with milk. 

Any kind of milk . 

Like "Oh I so hate this pumping thing that takes forever with a manual breast-pump and I can't do anything else because I need both my hands and it's also painful" kind of milk .

I wanted to wait long enough with the bottle so that she wouldn't get nipple confusion. 

Which is a thing. 

Which also is not a thing according to whatever source you are currently googling.

I might have waited too long. 

Not sure. 

Bottom line, she hated bottles. 

Any kind, from any one. 

Mommy, Daddy, Granma and daycare ladies. 

So breastfeeding it was. Is. Which is ok, mostly. I have long given up on relying on anyone to put Loud Baby to bed or help her go back to sleep at night. Yawn. 

The funny part is that after trying all the nursing positions described oh so easily and wisely by baby books (which I have come to hate with a passion- more on that some other time), it has become clear that we can only do it while lying down. 

Note: many books will say that if the mother is tired, the lying down nursing position is a very good option. 

%$^&* (Insert appropriate frustration expressing words here). A tired mother?  In the first months of  a newborn's life? Too tired to comment on that.

Anyway, the lying down thing is pretty great. Unless you are in the car. 

Or on a plane. 

Or basically not at home. 

We are presently in the nursing zumba stage of breastfeeding. Which means that while she is eating, Loud Baby will lift both her legs into the air, grab her feet with her tiny hands and do her little air dance of swinging and turning and bicycling. 

Sometimes she will accompany her aerobics with matching humming. 
Yes, while she is nursing. 

A nap at the end of the breastfeeding session?

Probably not this time.

One tired Mommy

I have different levels of tiredness. Some of them are common, some are a bit difficult to bear and some are completely new, introduced to me by the job of Momminess.

Let me explain what I mean.

Common tiredness a.k.a. first level: feeling sleepy, being a bit slow, yawning a lot.

Second level: take first level and add just a tiny bit of dizziness, a bit of a headache and sprinkle a little fogginess over your brain. Coordination is not all that smooth either (an elbow might be banged against the furniture more often than usual).

Third degree tiredness or Mommy exhaustion: take level two and add a whole new array of sensations like foot- sinking- into- the- floor feeling,

heightened hearing,

seeing the carpet as the perfect place to nap right here, right now,

communicating pretty much in yawns,

toilet is darn comfy,

dentist chair- yes, please- anything horizontal really,

child seems super fast and extra energetic; or super tantrumy,

inventing new, nonexistent words like "tantrumy",

patience is probably already sleeping because I have none. 

The more advanced you are on these levels, the less Loud Baby naps.

And the later Daddy will arrive (even if he does leave on time, he will be stuck in traffic).

When Loud Baby is finally asleep, Mommy plans on finishing dinner and going to bed.

Bed. Pillows. Aw. Soft and comfy.

But wait. There is life outside of Momminess. Mommy can now do some things that she enjoys.

Read a book. Maybe some blogs. Have a little chocolate treat. Watch a funny video. Have adult conversation with Daddy who suddenly becomes Husband again. Cool!

Where is the energy coming from?

Probably it's been borrowed from the following day.

Because Mommy will start off on level 2 even before the alarm (Loud Baby that is) sets off.

 Time for bed. Nighty night!

 

Baby needs Mommy needs

My little Loud Baby loves me. I know because she now regularly gives me hugs and gets all excited and makes high pitched happy noises when she sees me.

She needs me. 

Like today. I wanted to hug her, give her a big squeeze.

How annoying of me. She was obviously engaged in a terrific project which involved drooling (teeth are coming in, oh joy!) and staring at a plastic pink fork. So I kissed her little cheek and hugged her tight.

She pushed me away angrily. And resumed her inspection of pink cutlery.

I sighed and decided to use the bathroom while she was busy and all.

How annoying of me. She immediately got up, crying -you know, loudly- and demanding my immediate return.
 
I should really learn my place. Sit in the corner. Not too close but not too far either. Be ready for Loud Baby's needs.

But what about Mommy's needs?

I won't blab about sleep right now and other utopian desires. Maybe some other time.
I will be content with mentioning the fact that Mommies too need space.
And since physical space is pretty much a luxury nowadays (as the previous little story illustrates), I will say: Yay for blogs!

This will be my little space to organize my thoughts, jot down some memories, make fun of myself and share my ever-changing experience as a Mommy.

Because baby needs Mommy and Mommy needs to stay sane :)



P.S. I almost look like the lady in the picture with the perfect hair, super teeth and flawless make-up. Almost. 

Loud baby is loud

I've been a mommy for about 14 months now. I've always wanted it. Dreamed of it. 

It's so amazing.

So empowering.

So... brutal. 

Not what I expected.

Don't get me wrong. It's amazing (wait, I've already said that). But it really is. 

My little girl makes my heart melt, fills it with joy, gratitude and wonder. 

She is beautiful.
She is cute and cuddly.
She is LOUD.

Which brings me to my point. My heart goes out to all the parents who have loud babies. And to those who have colicky babies. Mine was both. She screamed straight through her first 4 months of life. And pretty much through her first year. 

When she was born, she was my little miracle. A perfect little angel. Until she cried. Ah... an angel who knew what she wanted. And she wanted to be rocked all the time. Like really hard. Like in the "Is this normal??" kind of way. She hated anything else.

The swing. The crib. The rocking chair. The car seat. (Please, anything but the car seat. I dreaded a car ride more than she did).

My husband and I, we would sometimes see people in the grocery store with sleeping babies in a carrier or in a car seat placed in the shopping cart. And we would marvel. Wondering what that must feel like. Pretty good I bet.

As for us, one of us would stay in the car with our screaming daughter trying all sorts of useless tricks for comforting her (pacifier, singing, shushing etc.). While the other one would quickly grab some stuff of the shelves (mostly frozen things and fruits) find the shortest line, run out like a maniac, get in the car, drive home and resume rocking. And yes, after awhile only one of us went to the store except for the times when we felt brave (and foolish) enough to try again.

Because it might just be different next time.