Hitting the Beach

Starting South Beach diet on my primary health provider's recommendation. My bp is good, but since the baby I've lost, then gained, some of the baby weight and I'm not in a great place. She also thinks my thyroid might be back out of whack and I'm being tested for that, including a new thyroid ultrasound. My goiter (yay me) seems to have grown. AND I get to have my first mammogram. So anyway, I'm doing South Beach and I'm on my first day and fairly optimistic.

A bajillion years later....

Haven't kept this up, have I? Well, I doubt anyone's reading anyway, at least not after this amount of radio silence!

Anyway, Liftoff Boy turned 1 in June and he's just an amazing and cool little guy. Mostly cheerful, very smart. His animal noise repertoire includes cat, dog, cow, bee, snake, dolphin (has to be heard to be appreciated), lion, duck and rooster. We're still working on sheep and a few other things. He will blow when you mention the wind and makes cool thunder noises. He will imitate train whistles, sirens and airplanes. Words he uses fairly regularly include "Whassat?" (accompanied by pointing at something), yeah, no, ba (bottle still), wa (water), tsehss (cheese), suwo (squirrel - we have lots outside) and Diddy (Daddy). Notice the lack of "Mommy". He loves to say both "boo," and since the Fourth of July, "boom!". Fireworks are cool! He repeats words when we introduce them too. He also does traditional ASL signs for "eat" and "all done" and has made up his own for showing he's sleepy (touching his ear with his hand). He can point to his nose and mouth, clap and stick out his tongue on command (even if you don't do it yourself), and sometimes will point to his eyes or ear when asked. He has no interest in waving. If he's in the mood he can complete spoken tasks like "Bring me a book" or "Can you go hug Jerry the giraffe?" He loves books and will bring them over to be read repeatedly.

He walks, runs, climbs on the furniture, and is very interested in in all kinds of toys. He's trying to figure out doorknobs at the moment. He'll try coloring with crayons, but so far the temptation to eat them is just too strong. He's starting to show interest in putting knobbed puzzle pieces into their proper spaces. He points all the time. He likes to play his recorder (toot it anyway), play his kazoo, hit his drum, etc. No real interest yet in stacking anything.

I think that's it.

Boom!

A spring in his step!

I haven't posted in a long, long time. But it is spring! Yowza. AND, get this - Liftoff Boy is walking. Walking! Thus the punny title.

I had a conference to go to at the end of March. In Monterey. And I was very, very happy about this because it was at a conference center by the sea. And it was all kinds of anthropology types who do religion and related things. And I would get to sleep. Yay, sleep!

But I knew that LB was getting close. Standing. Standing without holding onto anything. Getting a daring look in his eye.

So I go to my conference and there is the giving of a paper and the schmoozing with the colleagues and scholars whose work I've cited remembering my work and who I am (yay!) and wandering along the rocky coastline. And one evening a bunch of us escape into Pacific Grove and go eat some actual local seafood (as opposed to the cafeteria food at the conference center) and as we approach the restaurant on foot, my phone rings. It is Liftoff Guy, returning my call and letting me know that LB...had taken his first steps.

First steps! With Mommy on the other side of the continent! My heart broke a little bit. I really did feel like crying.

But you know what? I was home the next day, and soon LB was showing me his steps. And within 10 days, he was motoring across the house in a lovely, awkward way, holding his little hands up for balance and being very proud.

And I'm proud of him too. And I could have missed those steps by being in the bathroom or at the store, and instead I was someplace where it was almost worth it.

Oh, and...

Since the crying seems to have stopped, I think I'll add that my department is going through some particularly nasty politics at the moment and there's a meeting today where a lot of this is going to come to a head. To put it very briefly, department bully with a history of ethically questional behavior but lots of seniority is angling for a position of greater power and expects it to be handed to her since there is no one else in the running at this point. There is a resistence movement that might keep this from happening anyway (lack of department confidence may lead to an appointment of someone else) but the repercussions of standing in her way or making her have to work a bit harder for this are going to be unpleasant. However, knowing her likely reactions to the existence of the resistence movement are a large part of why there IS a resistence movement. Do you want someone insulting, punitive, insecure and paranoid to make the decisions for the next three years? No, but I still feel guilty for being part of the reason her paranoia may be justified.

It would have been nicer to deal with this on a full night's sleep.

Uurgh....

We all just got over stomach flu. During the worst of it, Liftoff Boy was a great sleeper. Naps during the day and a big old stretch from 8:30 or so to 7am. Even when he's sick, he usually sleeps through the night. Last night he went to bed easily about 9pm after playing for a good hour and after eating a big dinner (his appetite seems to have returned yesterday, yay). But he woke up crying miserably at 12:30am. We don't generally feed him during the night (we generally don't get up and eat during the night either), but after an hour and a half of diaper change and holding and unsuccessful self-soothing, I got him a bottle and that sucker was slurped down fast. He fell asleep at about 2. But he was up again at 3 (another bottle) and 4:30 (no bottle, but a stuffed animal in an effort to try something else that might be soothing. He seemed delighted at the stuffed animal (Flopsy, a bright yellow bear given to LB by my mother) and spent the next half-hour talking to it until he fell asleep. I woke up to his desperate, pained cries at 6:45 and brought him another bottle. Now I'm up with a full day of work ahead of me and the crying has just recommenced.

There were two doses of Tylenol in there. We don't know what is going on. This isn't how he acts when he's teething, so my guess is ear infection or possibly massive hunger bought on by his body trying to put on the weight loss during the flu. But this is probably the worst night we've had with him since he was born! Calling the pediatrician at 9 to see what's what, but then I have to be out the door by 9:45 or so so it'll all be up to Liftoff Guy.

I'm a hypocrite

I have several blogs that I read regularly and I get so annoyed when they don't update in a timely manner - and then there's my blog. But I rationalize that hardly anyone ever reads it (only one person that I know of), so....

Anyway, this has been a wacky week in the Liftoff household. The Stomach Flu Fairy visited and we've all spent the last few days (since Sunday) engaged in various forms of spew. Being sick with an equally sick baby is not fun. Also, Liftoff Boy had a tooth break through yesterday up top and has the other top one working its way through, so he's had a lovely combination of nausea, intestinal discomfort AND teething pain. He's usually quite the adventurer, but when knocked low like this he HAS to be on someone's lap or hip at all times.

On the plus side, LB thinks it's delightful and hilarious when I use my battery-powered toothbrush. It always gets a big grin, sick or no. And he'll hold on to it for me and help me brush if he's on Liftoff Guy's lap. Brushing Mommy's teeth is a good hobby I guess.

Also on the plus side, today the diaper changes were less frequent and, wonder of wonders, LB was actually willing to eat. Anything but milk or formula has been rejected this week, or, if not rejected, the cause of much vomiting. Even Pedialyte made him throw up. So hearing from LG that LB ate a bunch of apple sauce today and some oatmeal and seemed really interested in it is great news.

Also also on the plus side, my department unanimously recommended me for tenure and promotion to associate professor (up from assistant). There are a few hoops to go through before it's official in May, but it would be really weird if the personnel committee, the dean or the provost overturned it after such approbation from my department. So yay!

The Accelerator

One of my friends jokes that we put Liftoff Boy in an accelerater. We didn't, but man is he moving along with things. First thing, he's got these superstrong, thick, tree-trunk legs (they come from me), which means he was able to support his weight on his legs at 2 months. Even the pediatrician remarked on it - usually it's 4 month thing. Because of the legs, his crawling development has been different - normally babies pull themselves by their arms until their legs get strong enough to pick up the slack. With LB, the arms had to get strong enough to partner the legs. So now he's crawling like a pro, about two months ahead of schedule, and he's figuring out that if he holds onto things, like the cushions on the couch, he can balance himself enough to remain standing. He loves holding onto someone's hands and walking around the room too.

Yesterday Liftoff Guy's mom and I took LB to the mall (malls are a blessing when it's 0 degrees outside and taking a child outdoors would be really dangerous) where he rode his first merry-go-round animal (a frog - I was holding him tight) and he got to play in the big playground thing they have set up. It looks like a forest scene with lots of rocks and tree stumps and animals, but everything is this soft rubbery plastic and the ground is foam. LB was entranced watching all of these bigger kids run around him and climb over mushrooms and such... Eventually he started to try to pull himself to standing, but the little mushrooms he had chosen didn't let him get vertical (I bet no one else has ever written that sentence!). Still, as an only child he doesn't see many other kids and when he sees what they can do, I think it makes him even more driven.

I've been watching him lately, and he makes me want to sing that old Matthew Wilder song "Never Gonna Break my Stride". I apparently walked by 10 months and I think LB will be able to do it before then. It's weird to be proud of something and dread it at the same time...