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September 29th, 2009
 | 02:44 pm
So I had one of the better Yom Kippurs of my life. The fast was fine. We spent most of the day at the hotel where services were. Shai napped on my mom's hotel room bed. Niv did not. We went home at the break between morning and afternoon services so that Niv could have a nap and we could rest.
Niv woke from his nap very abruptly at 4:00 coughing and wheezing and crying and obviously scared and having trouble breathing. At first I thought he was going to throw up, but he kept shaking his head and telling me that wasn't it. Finally, I decided it must be an asthma attack and got his inhaler and dosed him. After a few minutes, he seemed to be calming down a bit, so I chalked it up to "how random, guess he's okay" and left it at that. He seemed to be okay the rest of the afternoon and evening, except being a bit hoarse, so we didn't worry.
Until he woke again at 11:30 with the same kind of attack, and this time the albuterol didn't help very much. I had speculated that it was croup, and now I was fairly sure, but I didn't know exactly what croup was, and I didn't know what we were supposed to do. I called the nurse line and he advised us to go to the ER.
So, at midnight last night, after a long day of fasting, we went to the hospital. We were there for a little less than three hours. They confirmed croup and immediately dosed him with a steroid, which did start to help fairly quickly. Then they brought us back again to check on him and decided to try a cool mist treatment to try to bring down the inflammation some more. Eventually, that was done, too, and he was declared okay to come home.
I had left a peacefully sleeping, not night-weaned, Shai with my mom. In the three hours we were gone, he'd woken 4 times! Yeesh. Anyway, we all eventually got a little sleep, Niv more than the rest of us, heh. He's sleeping now, too. Poor guy. They said lots of fluids, cool, moist air, and just watch him. He should be fine in a few days. Alrighty.
So random. I have no idea where he picked it up. Sucks. I really hope Shai doesn't catch it.
I'm soooo exhausted. Way too much stress on the body for one day.
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September 25th, 2009
 | 08:53 pm
All right. Here's an outline for this essay/article thing. I'm going to need stats, info, etc. Good links/websites? Obviously LLLI, Kellymom. What about specific studies of specific advantages/disadvantages of breastfeeding vs. formula I might find useful?
( Outline )
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 | 04:48 pm
I want to write an essay. A formal, composed, well-considered, well-written, proof-read, edited essay. And I want to write it about infant feeding, seeing as I apparently have strong feelings on the matter.
Not sure of my thesis, if I have one. Not sure exactly where it's headed, to be honest, except that my question is "Why do so many women not breastfeed?", or, possibly "Why wouldn't you breastfeed?" I'm not sure if I want to take the stronger and more polemic "You're an idiot if you don't" (which I don't really believe, but that's how it will come off if I go that route), or the gentler and more informative "Formula is inferior, but here's why some women end up using it." But topics I want to cover:
1. Making the choice between formula and breastmilk
2. Family, peer, acquaintance attitudes/beliefs and how they affect a woman's decision
3. Reasons a woman chooses to formula-feed
4. Reasons a woman chooses to breastfeed
5. Information about breast-feeding and formula-feeding every woman should have before giving birth
6. My personal experiences on both sides of the equation, and why I feel now the way I do.
Input? Thoughts? I need a starting point.
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September 23rd, 2009
 | 04:12 pm
Got my hair cut this morning!
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| 03:12 pm - Talking about breastfeeding AGAIN. Yeesh.
The other day, we went out to dinner. There was a table near us that appeared to consist of two couples each with a young baby. At one point, one of the mothers took out a bag of EBM, pured it in a bottle, and fed the baby. My first thought was, "Oh! That's breastmilk!" My second was to wonder, "Is she giving the baby a bottle because she doesn't like NIP, or is she exclusively pumping?" Naturally, neither Ronen nor my friend, who was joining us for dinner, cared at all, or even noticed. But I cared. Because if she's exclusively pumping, she deserves a big hug for working so hard for her baby. And if she just doesn't like to NIP, then she deserves a big hug for providing BM instead of using formula, because that's still hard work. (Also, they all seemed like very nice people. Niv, for whatever reason, threw up suddenly, and one of the fathers gave us a handful of napkins from their table to help.)
It's so funny. Before I was pregnant with Niv, I knew you were supposed to breastfeed, knew NOTHING about formula, and had no strong opinions on the topic at all.
When I was pregnant with Niv, I knew I would breastfeed, figured we could give a bottle of formula once in a while if the situation called for it (whatever situation that might have been...), and othewise had no strong opinions on the topic at all.
After Niv was born, I decided that while I really wished I could have breastfed him, formula feeding was perfectly fine and was working well for us, and who cared what anyone said.
Longer after Niv was born, I hated that I didn't breastfeed and wondered what kind of harm I might have caused by formula-feeding him.
And by the time I was pregnant with Shai, I was a totally obsessed with breastfeeding, and it made me terribly sad whenever someone I knew had difficulty and switched to or started supplementing with formula.
And now that Shai has been here for 9 months and was exclusively breastfed for the first 6 (with hardly ever even a bottle of EBM, much less anything else!), I'm practically a "boob-nazi," except I would never put someone down for FF-ing, whatever their reasons, because that's just not nice, and, really, who am I to talk anyway? Hehe.
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 | 10:07 am
Two cute Niv stories, before I forget.
Yesterday, Mom told me that Niv saw a Doritos truck and asked what it was. She told him it was a Doritos truck (duh). Later, he saw another Doritos truck. He pointed to it and said, "That's a burritos truck. It gives burritos to the children!"
Niv loves trash trucks, so trash day is especially exciting for him. Today, he saw a trash truck and asked, "Do trash trucks have music?" And you know, I don't know! I assume the garbage collectors can listen to music in the truck, wouldn't you think? I thought that was a fairly astute question!
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September 22nd, 2009
 | 10:17 pm - In which I rave about Shai some more
Shai claps! And it SOOOOO cute what he does, too. I mean, he'll clap like any other baby, two hands occasionally meeting, with rarely an actual clapping sound, but lots of joy and yelling, but my baby is special. Because, see, when you're trying to teach a baby to clap, first you clap your hands and yell "Yay!!" and make it all fun, right? And then he gets excited and wants to do it too, so you take his wrists gently and clap his hands for him to show him how it's done, right? And then he gets all excited and yells and grins and giggles and tries unsuccessfully to clap on his own, right?
Not MY baby! My baby is soooo smart. First I clap and get all excited and yell "Yaaaaayy!!!" and then he gets all excited and grins and giggles and shouts and reaches over and takes MY hands in his little fingers and claps MY hands!
I need to get some video of that.
OMG I don't think he could be cuter if you painted a picture of a baby panda on his head. (And you could, too, because he's still basically bald.)
(For cuteness level of baby panda, please see icon.)
So, since he's so imitative and gestural, I'm trying to teach him to sign "more" instead of yelling and banging on the table when he runs out of Puffs. We'll get there, and then I'll rave about how cute THAT is.
Tonight when he was nursing to sleep, he started waving and clapping unconsciously. When Niv is falling asleep, he often talks to himself or plays out scenes out loud (sometimes at the top of his lungs) as he processes his day. It seemed like Shai was talking to himself or rehearsing what he had done today in much the same way. How awesome is THAT?
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 | 04:35 pm
Woo 161! 16 pounds to go. (I want to be 145 by Shai's birthday. I think it can be done!)
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September 18th, 2009
| 09:11 am
I forgot!
Yay!
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September 17th, 2009
 | 07:59 pm
Shai had his nine-month well-baby visit today. He's 20.5 lbs (gained a whopping 1 pound since 6 months, lol) and 29.5 inches (grew TWO INCHES from six months!!). So he's getting long and skinny...like his daddy, I guess. :) I'm actually surprised he gained any weight. This kid never stops moving! It's amazing!
Anyway, this was so cool. There's a new pediatrician at the Oceanside Kaiser facility. He asked if Shai was sleeping through the night. I said "'not sleeping through the night' is an understatement." Heh. He asked if he was in bed with me. My initial instinct was to lie and say of course not, but then I decided to be proud and said "sometimes with us and sometimes in the crib," which is about accurate. He said - get this - he said, "Yeah, if you do that, you have to either decide just to live with it, or you have to stick to a really strict routine. We decided just to live with it because we couldn't stick to a routine." !!!!! A doctor who coslept with his own kids! And doesn't berate his patient's mom for doing the same! And doesn't disapprove of it! Whee! I was so thrilled. He even added how fun it is to wake up in the morning with them smiling at you. !!!!!
Ahem.
Sorry, I was just so surprised! I really liked him. Looked just like a pediatrician should, too. In my opinion. And did the exam on my lap, which I like, because it shows he understands that (a) Mommy wants to protect baby, and (b) baby does NOT want to lie on that icky table, no sir.
He did say we should sit down to family meals. Ha. Like that's going to happen often. We try. It's just our schedules are wonky. We do breakfast together, at least.
Oh, and I should read to him every night. Well, I try, but Shai likes to eat books, not read them. It'll come in time. The same thing happened with Niv.
He ordered a standard blood test for anemia et al., which I liked because it means he's not one of these "OH, you better give him cereal because he might get anemic" and also because he said where he came from (Hawaii, I think), they always did the standard blood tests at 9 months, but here they seem to do it at a year, but at a year there are five shots already and it just doesn't seem fair to also jab them for a blood test, whereas at 9 months there are no shots. Yay!
What else...Oh, he kept telling me things I already know, which basically sounded like his 9-month check-up script, like, "He'll start saying Ma-ma and da-da soon, but he won't mean you, but they always say da-da first," blah blah I already know this because I have an older kid and have been through it. But anyway. I really did like him. I might switch Niv to him, although it's somewhat irrelevant when he only needs to go once a year.
Naturally, Shai's veins did not feel like being easily accessible, so all in all, the blood draw was fairly..er...not fun. He screamed a lot. Mostly didn't want to be held down. I think he was indignant about that much more than actually being poked. Heh. Then I nursed him in the lobby, and this cute old couple sat down near me and sort of watched, and when he was done, the old guy said, "How old is he, Mom?" and I said "Nine months" and that was that. I liked it. Gave me a good feeling. Not sure why.
Now both kids are in new pj's. Boy did they make out well today. Two new blanket sleepers and two new sets of long-sleeved pj sets for each, plus each got a new outfit to wear tomorrow night for Rosh Hashanah. I also got a new outfit, a cute skirt and shirt, and I got Ronen a new shirt. So new clothes for all for the new year. Yay.
Actually, it was super cute. Shai hasn't been in long sleeves in a while. Not in his memory, really, since it's been so warm for so long, and it was his first summer and all that. So he kept looking at his arm wondering why it was blue and green. Lol.
Oh!!! And also super cute! I had this little truck toy, and I was going "brbrbrbrbr" (you know, the truck noise with your lips?) and moving it toward Shai and then tapping his nose with it and going "Beep!" Then he took the truck from me, blew a raspberry, and touched the truck to MY nose!!!! OMG I melted. SO CUTE.
Oh, and the height/length limit for Shai's bucket seat is 30 inches. (It's 30 pounds/30 inches, which is odd, because a 30-pound 30-inch kid would be hella fat!) This means that Shai has almost outgrown it height-wise. I use the RA in my car, but my mom's been using the KeyFit30 as backup in her car when she needs to take both kids somewhere. (Niv has two Nautiluses, one in my car and one in hers.) We'll have to decide whether to buy a new seat for her car or just have her use my car if she needs to take Shai somewhere. I can't see moving the RA back and forth. Too much trouble.
I'm reading "How To Talk So Your Child Will Listen And Listen So Your Child Will Talk" or whatever the hell it's called. Seems REALLY good. I tried the first lesson on Niv today and IT WORKED! He dropped something in the car and kept whining "I dropped my toy!" So I said, "Are you angry that you dropped your toy?" And he said, "No, I'm not angry." And I said, "Are you sad?" And he said, "I'm sad." And I said, "I'm sorry you dropped your toy." And then he moved cheerfully onto another topic!! If I had gone with my usual "Well, you should have held onto it," or "I'm sorry you dropped your toy, but there's nothing I can do," he would have kept whining!
Ok, that's all for now.
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September 15th, 2009
 | 04:27 pm
Shai can wave!!!
I'm doubly excited by this, because Niv never waved as a baby. Yay! Now onto clapping. And maybe I can get my butt in gear (that's such a weird expression) and actually sign with him, since he seems to be willing to imitate gestures.
Wave!!!
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September 14th, 2009
 | 10:14 am
Shai slept from 8:-ish to 11:30, then until 2:30, then 3:something, then 4:something, then 6:something then 7:30! Best night's sleep I've had in weeks. (How pathetic is that?)
When I got Niv to school (late), I took Shai out of his carseat and found, to my extreme dismay, a poo-splosion! Poop on the carseat, up his back, all over his pants, down his leg, all over my arm (thank GOD I didn't put him on my hip before I noticed). I sent Niv into the school with a teacher, then went back to the car to retrieve wipes and the VERY LAST DIAPER in the diaper bag (I do NOT know what I would have done if I'd had no diapers. Maybe begged one from the toddlers). I grabbed the only extra clothes I could find quickly, which happened to be one of Niv's long-sleeved shirts (size 3T, lol). The director of the school offered me the changing area in the pre-primary room (Niv's class!). I could NOT have changed that much of a mess in the car, where I normally would have handled a poopy diaper (a NON-splosive poop, that is).
So there I am in the bathroom of Niv's classroom, Shai SCREAMING his head off at the indignity of being stripped and wiped down on a hard, unfamiliar changing table. I have poop all up my arm. He has it all down his leg, on his foot, up his back. You know where there wasn't any poop? IN THE FREAKING DIAPER. Well, there was some, but none in front. WTF? It's the angle of the carseat. When he poops in the carseat (which is fairly rare these days), it just goes straight up the back. Sigh.
So, there I am in the bathroom of Niv's class, so naturally Niv comes to see me. He's standing there with one hand on my leg the whole time. "I want to give you a hug," he says. Fine, but I'm covered in poop and trying to keep Shai from (a) climbing the shelves, (b) rolling off the table, and (c) getting poop anywhere else. I told him to hug my leg, which he apparently didn't hear, so I'm having to dodge him while I'm throwing things away, getting paper towels, etc. I get Shai finished, wash my hands and arm, survey my clothes to find (to my incredible relief) that there is not, in fact, poop anywhere else, get Niv's shirt on Shai (soooo cute, by the way, with the big ol' shirt and no pants). Finally, I gave Niv a hug and sent him on his way.
I left the wipes in the bathroom, but I so didn't feel like going back for them. Consider them a donation.
Well, there's poop on the carseat, too! Yay! So I put a receiving blanket between Shai and the carseat and get us home, where I gave Shai an otherwise unnecessary bath (he had one last night), then went back out and stripped the carseat and washed the cover. The poop came out, but it'll probably take a while to dry. Sigh.
I stopped in the Jack-in-the-Box Drive-Thru and got myself a BIG, CALORIE-LADEN iced coffee. Definitely a day for that.
Always an adventure!
Oh, oh, but Shai did something so cute yesterday. Well, first-off, I'm getting a taste of what toddler-nursing acrobatics will be like. He tries to roll to his stomach TOWARD me while we side-lying nurse lately. THAT's fun. But then he inevitably loses his latch (by the way, he has SIX teeth, so losing his latch without first opening his mouth can be...um...ow). Then he ends up at a weird angle and either tries to latch back on from there or gets hopelessly confused. But now that he's been feeding himself solids a lot, he's used to grabbing his food and bringing it to his mouth.
You can see where this is going, right?
Yeah, the boob was too far away, so he grabbed my nipple in a perfect pincher-grip and tried to pull it about 8 inches to his mouth. Now, my boobs aren't terribly small, but, um....they're not that big, or stretchy, either. Mmmmffff.
But it was so hilarious at the same time, and he didn't draw blood or anything, so I laughed and laughed, then rearranged him and got back down to business.
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September 10th, 2009
 | 04:23 pm
Yikes. I've been so bad about this. I'm on Facebook all the time, and I forget to update here!
1. Niv's Upshirin is coming up! That's when we cut his hair. Big ol' party. He's going to be THREE. OMG I CAN'T DO IT! I CAN'T CUT THAT HAIR! It's Sunday October 18 from 4-6PM. If you want to come, let me know, and I'll fill you in on the wheres and whats.
2. Shai's SIXTH tooth is about to erupt. Four on top, two on the bottom. He'll be nine months next Thursday. WTF? Six teeth in 2 months?! (His first popped out just before he turned 7 months.) 14 to go...
3. Shai still sleeps not well. As in, NURSES ALL NIGHT. Sigh. I'm working up the courage to move him out of my bed and out of my room and into another room in his crib and not letting him eat so often at night so I CAN GET SOME SLEEP OMG.
4. Niv suddenly outgrew all his 24-month/2T pants. Like, this morning.
5. Shai still isn't cruising or officially crawling with his belly off the floor, but I think it's by choice. Silly guy. Oh, but he eats everything he finds. I've found such wonderful things in his mouth. Bits of plastic, pieces of paper and cards... gack. Gotta watch that kid! Also, Niv likes to cut things into little pieces and then leave the little pieces everywhere. Maybe I'm going to have to start vacuuming every day. :(
6. Shai does shriek when he can't reach something he wants or we take something away (the remote, a little piece of plastic he shouldn't eat, the remote, a little piece of paper he shouldn't eat, my hair, the remote...) Fun times. I have the feeling we are going to have a tantrumer on our hands. Niv never tantrumed. Not that he doesn't act like a toddler, but he doesn't throw himself on the floor and scream his head off, either.
7. Niv is constantly beating up on all of us. Hitting, kicking, scratching. He steps on Shai. All on purpose. All with this look of pure malice on his face. It's starting to be a little terrifying. Why is my kid so violent? What do I do to teach him that it's wrong? How does he learn to stop himself before doing it? I ask him why he does it, and he says "Because I want to." Am I raising a freaking psychopath? Eep. He doesn't hurt the cats, but I think that's because he has a healthy respect for their claws after being scratched quite a few times. Maybe when Shai starts hitting, kicking, scratching, and hair-pulling back, Niv will back off.
(I admit, I've slapped Niv a few times (on the hand). It's more effective than time-outs. Sigh. I don't want to do that. Time outs don't faze him. I don't know what would...) We've come to the conclusion that he's emotionally still a 2-year-old, even though he's almost 3. If I think about him that way, maybe I can come up with a more effective discipline/teaching technique for his impulsivity.
So scary. I'm really at a loss. I borrowed Supernanny's book from a friend. I'll see if she has any suggestions!
8. I'm in the midst of rewriting/reworking Teshuva again. I think it will be awesome!
9. I weigh 164 as of Monday evening. :) (8 pounds down, 20 to go!)
10. I should really be working.
11. We got Beatles Rock Band!!! SO MUCH FUN!
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August 28th, 2009
| 08:12 pm
The Verdict: Challah was pretty good! Next time we'll sweeten with honey instead of sugar, and we'll do half-and-half of white flour and whole wheat instead of all whole wheat. TBH, it pretty much tasted like wheat bread. Hehe. But edible!
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August 27th, 2009
| 10:56 pm
So, mom and I decided to attempt to make challah this week. It's easy if you have a mixer with a dough hook. Which I do. Except...we couldn't find the dough hook. I mean, we tore the kitchen apart looking for it. It wasn't with all the other bread-making stuff, including the rest of the mixer pieces, the flour, the yeast....sigh. So we kneaded it by hand. We'll see how it comes out. It's my understanding that bread is pretty forgiving, so I don't think it will be bad, but it will be hardly professional. We decided to make the dough and do the first rising tonight, then freeze it, then thaw it tomorrow and do the shaping and second rise and baking tomorrow afternoon. It would have taken until after 10 tonight to do it all at once, and we didn't want to make that kind of time commitment.
I used all whole wheat flour. I'm thinking now maybe we should have done half-and-half for texture/flavor, but we'll see how it is. It's a learning process. And as much as you want to have super-yummy-delicious challah every time, sometimes things just don't go quite right, especially if it's your first time making bread. (Sure, I've SEEN it done, but I haven't DONE it.) I'll let you all know how it came out once we've eaten it tomorrow night.
In other news, Shai sprouted his third tooth, a top middle incisor, and is working on a fourth, the one next to it (not the middle). I worry about his latch now, because he's always been kind of lazy, and I've let him be, and now I'm afraid it will come back to bite me (literally) when those top teeth are fully in...eep.
I have a cough, which I apparently caught from Niv, who apparently caught it at school, where anyone who's anyone is coughing these days. It's actually not that bad, but it's annoying nonetheless. It's very wet and phlegmy, but it seems to get better quickly. Now I think I gave it to Shai, despite all the breast milk. Ah well. C'est la vie. I suppose breast milk can do only so much when you're coughing in your baby's face and sticking your fingers in his mouth constantly to check on his teeth or unlatch him because he's biting. Heh.
On Tuesday, Niv's teacher didn't feel well, so she drover herself to the doctor. The doctor said she was having a heart attack and called 911 from the clinic. She had lost feeling in one arm and her left leg. Today (two days later) she was back at work, using a cane because the feeling had not returned to her leg yet. !! The woman loves her job, wow. Couldn't stay away. Good for the kids, not so sure it's good for her!! She had a HEART ATTACK for God sakes! No insurance. :( Where's that universal healthcare...?
I'm on a diet. I'm having 2000 calories a day. 500 get burned off by making milk, or so they tell me, so really all I have to do is sit here and lactate in order to lose weight. I seem to be very good at that. I had lost 2 pounds as of Monday, which was 2 weeks since starting the diet. (The first week, I didn't lose any. The second week, I lost 2. Go figure.) My thighs and face seem thinner. I'm looking for the belly to go bye-bye. I no like belly. Also, if the boobs would shrink a little, that would be fine. They too big now. Anyway, I've also been walking regularly with a friend for several months now, so that should help all-in-all. The past couple days, I've had to force myself to eat MORE, which is quite a change from my prior "stuff my face at every meal" attitude. For breakfast I end up having about 300 calories. For lunch, about 400. The idea is that I can basically have whatever I want for dinner, because I've got 1300 or so calories left. But for dinner I've been lazy and having something small and not cooking, and what I end up with only has like 300 calories! Which is NOT enough for a lactating woman! Oops. So I think I have to plan better, and if I won't be having a big or calorie-laden dinner, I should strive to eat MORE for breakfast and/or lunch! Lol.
Actually, my goal in the short-run was to shrink my appetite so that I wouldn't feel like I needed to eat so much at a time. That seems to be working, so now I can loosen up a little bit and eat a bit more in a sitting.
I was 170 on Monday. My goal is 155 (pre-Shai weight) by Shai's birthday (December 17) and then 145 (pre-Niv weight) by about February/March, and then hopefully 140 not long after. If I make it down to 140, I may shoot for 135, but we'll see when the time comes. Short-term goals for now!
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August 20th, 2009
| 10:29 pm
Today I said that bad advice is worse than no advice (in the context of breastfeeding, but I think it applies in general, don't you?)
I also decided that people need to know that you should just, you know, go ahead and breastfeed, and don't worry about how to solve problems unless you have them!
I can't believe I still talk about breastfeeding so often even after eight months! It still amazes me every day. Also, Shai is REALLY cute.
Niv wanted a ponytail this morning. His hair is really starting to annoy him. It's always in his face, gets in his mouth when he eats. We'll cut it when he's three. OMG ONLY TWO MONTHS UNTIL I HAVE A THREE YEAR OLD. WUT?!
A couple times in the past few weeks, Shai has been scooting around, as he does, and has come across a pacifier Niv has thoughtfully tossed on the floor upon waking. Shai picks it up by the business end, sticks it in his mouth, and sucks on it! LOL. He never used one!!! So funny. Especially when Niv is sick and it's not exactly a clean pacifier... Oh well, breastmilk FTW.
Oh God neither kid got an afternoon nap today and wow. I literally beat my head against the wall several times. Sigh. Although I did get Niv to eat some salmon by telling him it was meatballs. Am I a terrible person?
I have to potty and go to bed. I actually really love climbing into bed and cuddling up with Shai now. But sometimes he's in the way. And he really needs to quit waking up before 6. He really really does.
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August 18th, 2009
| 08:56 pm
It's time for a random poll! I know you are all looking to procrastinate SOMETHING, so enjoy! (I'm actually not procrastinating at all. I'm just waiting for Ronen to get home so I can eat dinner. I'm starving.)
Poll #1445710 Leftovers Storage
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11You make a yummy dinner and there is enough left over for at least one person to have a serving another time. You: Assuming you are not a wasteful person and you do not like to overeat, you decide to save the leftovers. The container you choose to store the leftovers turns out to be too small, but you don't realize it until it's full and there are leftover leftovers. If the previous scenario applies, you:
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July 17th, 2009
| 03:26 pm
I'm a terrible person. I bought my kids matching t-shirts. Now that Shai is growing into 12-month size stuff, I can buy him Garanimals shirts at Walmart ($3.50!), too. So I did. Hahaha.
This morning Shai was eating bananas, so Ronen and I were chanting "This ... is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S." When I got in the car after my Walmart spree, guess what was on the radio? I laughed and texted Ronen. Hee.
I got a jury summons in the mail the other day. It says breastfeeding mothers get to postpone the date up to a year! So I called the number, which was for an automated system, and it asked me what date I'd like to postpone to. I was like, um...er... It also said that depending on which courthouse you were assigned to, you can't choose a Friday or you have to choose a Monday or... ACK! There was no "I'm breastfeeding and want a postponement" specific option. After I didn't respond for a bit, it transferred me to a real, live person. I said I was breastfeeding, she said okay, you can have a date six months from now, and then if I still need to postpone, I can call again when I get my new summons and postpone for another six months! It was that easy! Very nice.
Shai is seven months old today. How can that be?
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July 16th, 2009
 | 09:48 am
I bought Niv another car seat yesterday, another Graco Nautilus (why mess with a good system, right?). Shai had been screaming bloody murder every time I put him in the bucket lately, so I thought he might be more comfortable in the Roundabout, so I made the switcheroo. It seemed to work.
Anyway, I decided to take Niv to Wendy's for dinner last night. He doesn't remember the last time he ate there, so it was new to him. (Not that fast food places differ so greatly, and he is rather intimately familiar with McDonald's.) He walked in the door, looked around, and declared, "It's beautiful!" So cute. Then when he got his food, he exclaimed that there was a pretty girl on the fries (Wendy).
I think I've figured out what it's like to be a toddler, though. Imagine you're in a foreign country with a totally different culture, different alphabet/writing, different everything. The architecture is different. You can't read any signs. The road signs aren't familiar looking. Even the cars look different, the people, the style of dress. Think, like, Japan or Saudi Arabia or something. You're walking around totally bewildered at all the commotion, the things whizzing by that aren't comfortingly familiar (where are the Dodge Caravans and the Ford Focuses? Where are the Mack trucks?). You can't find a grocery store by name or logo. You can't read the restaurant menus. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, you see a McDonald's sign. Surely, you'd turn to your companion (of course you have a companion, who is, perhaps, less bewildered than you) and exclaim, "There's a McDonald's!"
And that, I think, is what it's like to be a toddler. There's so much around you that you don't understand, don't recognize, can't name. And then you see something, a trash can, a school bus, a stop sign, that you do recognize, so you point it out. Your parents think you're nuts for caring so much about a stop sign, but it's because you know what it is, dammit!
What do you think? Seem about right?
Niv has started taking a shower with one of us in the morning. I like it because his hair gets clean. He seems to enjoy it. Means no bath at bedtime, though, so I have to stretch out the evenings more, which is fine. Very random, though. It was his idea.
I guess that's it. I'm about to post a new set of pictures, from last month.
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July 13th, 2009
| 10:56 pm
I had my birthday party yesterday. Yay! It was fun. Peoples camed!! And stuff!! Food! Soda and beer!! ROCK BAND (thank you David!!). FUN. Babies! Toddlers! All kinda peoples! CAKE! Tablecloth on FIRE! (Pictures eventually.)
I'm done. I'm so sleepy and ick. I have a three-bad-night maximum. I do okay after one bad night. I do okay after two. But after the third... neeeeeerrbbbbchewwww (that's how you spell the sound of a bomb dropping. I've just decided that). Sigh. Shai's been waking just about every hour and then being all the way awake (not just nurse-and-go-back-to-sleep awake) around 5. Oh boy.
HOT.
Today I took Shai over to my friend Rebecca's house. She has hired a friend's teenaged daughters (from a family of EIGHT kids) to come and watch her baby, and Shai was invited to be watched as well (we split the cost, which is pretty cheap, anyway). I sent over a 4oz bag and a 2.5oz bag of milk from my freezer stash. He wouldn't take the bottle at all, so he went four hours without eating. I had to toss the 4oz, but I put the 2.5oz back in the freezer. When I went back to Rebecca's, he pounced on me. Hehe. He was like, "Oh thank GOD woman, where the heck have you been? I'm STARVING!! Can't you get your shirt up any faster? Yeesh! Gimme gimme gimme gimme nom nom nom nom nom... Aaaaahhh. Hi mom!" So cute.
Then we took our hour walk. HOT. Good walk, though.
I've really been exercising lately! Half-hour on the Wii Fit every day, except yesterday, since I got it, plus an hour walk about three or four days a week with Rebecca. It feels so good! I haven't lost any weight, but I definitely feel the effects in other ways. Like, stamina-wise. Yay!
I never thought I'd have a kid who wouldn't take a bottle. It's quite gratifying, in its way. Of course, then he had to eat every hour this afternoon to catch up. Heh. Funny how a baby who is home with me all day still manages to reverse-cycle sometimes. How could I ever have thought that he might be down to one feeding at night by now. Hahahaha.
ROCK BAND IS FUN. Duh. But David did give me his Guitar Hero II and III for XBox (360) because, well, he doesn't have an XBox and we do. He bought them when he was living with us, but now he's not living with us, so it's silly. If he decides to get himself an XBox, I shall happily return them. But in the meantime... my left hand is TIRED from all the GUITAR HEROing. Heh.
Oh God, Shai can SCOOT. Not exactly crawling, but he gets where he wants to go. Eventually. He's going to be a quick little bugger when he figures out hands-and-knees crawling. His favorite toys are the hook/link thingies that you use to hang toys from play gyms. LOL. SO CUTE.
WHERE DID MY LITTLE NEWBORN LUMP BABY GO? But the TUSH! And the THIGHS!
I've decided I like Huggies Natural Fit the best of all the diapers I've tried on him. Hooray for finding a diaper finally! They cost the same as Pampers, except Sam's Club/Costco don't sell them. Oh well. It'll do.
Maybe Niv will potty train sometime in the next...three years... gah. At least then we'd only have ONE in diapers.
Life is funny.
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