The Light at the End of the Tunnel

February has been a tough month so far. Heavy snowfalls, bitter cold, drenching rains, flooding and lack of sunlight are enough to dampen anyone's spirits. And if that weren't enough, Maria got sick... sicker than she has been to date. Not only did she have a runny nose, cough, high fever and ear infection, but she also managed to have diarrhea, diaper rash and a terrible teething episode concurrent with the nasty cold/ear infection issues. I don't know how she managed it, but it appears our daughter is an over-achiever at the tender age of 10.5 months!

It was the worst of times in many ways. We sweated through sleep deprivation, ear-splitting wails and the dilemma of whether or not to go to the "convenient" care clinic to suffer the inconvenience of sitting in a germ-infested waiting room for more than 2 hours with a hysterical child since the high fever ironically made its first appearance on Friday evening! We decided to hang onto our remaining shreds of sanity and NOT go to convenient care.

Bright and early Monday morning I was able to make an appointment with Maria's regular pediatrician and he diagnosed Miss Cranky with a bad case of the ear-infection fussies! Armed with some liquid Amoxicillin and a medicine dropped I headed home with high hopes for a healthy child in the near future. These hopes were seriously endangered by little Miss Fussy, who does not like Amoxicillin despite the copious amount of sugar mixed into the liquid. With each dose the struggles escalated from head turning to trying to bat the dropper away to all out flailing and spitting. The medicine ended up all over her, the changing table, me, Mark and sometimes the wall. After a few days of this I was starting to worry that she would have an ear infection for the rest of her life because we, the incompetent parents that we are, couldn't get enough medicine in her!

Then along came my knight in shining armor. Since it is Valentine's Day after all, I'd like to say that I have an amazingly creative and talented husband and I am constantly thinking how lucky I am to be married to him! One morning he measured out the medicine as usual and then started to put it drop by drop in the center of some Cheerios, Maria's favorite food. He put the Cheerios on her tray and to my amazement she picked them up and ate them, medicine and all! It took a while, but she got the full dose that morning and every morning after that! Eventually Mark started putting some of the medicine on toast just to speed things up a bit.

Today Maria is finally done with her meds and has returned to her usual happy self. Sometimes she gets a little too happy and starts to scream at the top of her lungs apparently just because she can, but I'd rather have a happy and loud baby than a sick and loud one any day!

My Favorite Baby Carrier

Just two or three months after I discovered we were expecting a baby, I started on a quest for the right baby carrier. I had been told by my mom that babies tend to get fussy in the evening just when you are tired, too, and trying to put together dinner on top of it all. Several women had told me how much they loved their baby slings because they could just put the baby in and nurse while cooking dinner and keeping an eye on the older kids. It sounded the perfect multitasking solution to me, so the hunt for the perfect carrier began!

I had heard from some friends that a baby Bjorn worked great for them, so I promptly found a gently used one on ebay and bought it last summer (my first purchase for the baby!). At first she seemed too small for the baby Bjorn, but when she was about 6 weeks old I started using it. It worked OK, but I wasn't exactly enthralled with it. I found a couple of serious drawbacks. First of all, I didn't like the time it takes to put on and get it adjusted. I had to look at the directions for the first 4 or 5 times I put it on, but eventually got the hang of it. Still, it seemed to take forever to put on and all the while Maria would be crying because she wanted to be held that very instant. The second drawback too me a while to discover, but I discovered the Bjorn becomes more and more uncomfortable the heavier your baby gets. My Bjorn was the kind with lumbar support and everything, but still it was uncomfortable. From many a backpacking trip I've learned that a heavy pack feels much lighter when most of the weight is on your waist and as little as possible on the shoulders. The Bjorn puts all the weight squarely on one's shoulders. With disappointment I continued my quest for the perfect baby carrier.

Determined to make baby wearing work for me, I purchased a used Moby wrap. It's basically a long piece of cloth that one wraps around one's body and the baby can fit in it an number of different ways. I used it some and it made some tasks like cooking or hanging out the laundry a little easier since I could take her with me. I never really got the hang of the wrap. It was time consuming to put on (same problem as the Bjorn), hard to put Maria in so we'd both be comfortable and as the weather heated up, wrap wearing was definitely out in our non-air conditioned home. Also, wraps are NOT manly so I could not realistically entertain the hope that Mark would ever find the wrap useful. Thus, the hunt continued!

After witnessing an acquaintance use her Ergo baby carrier, I was intrigued. I read up on it and watched the demo videos featuring folks who were WAY too happy about their Ergo carrier (check out the one on attachment parenting... I'm somewhat attachment oriented myself, but this is over the top!). Despite the gushing happiness of the videos, I purchased a carrier and have been overwhelmingly pleased with it! Some of my favorite features... it's very easy and intuitive to put on and it's COMFORTABLE! You can hold a child from infancy (with an insert) up to 4 or 5 years old so you need to buy only one carrier, also the carrier works in 3 different positions (front, back and side), it's manly enough for my husband to wear, and it puts most of the weight squarely on one's hips (unlike some other carriers I've mentioned). I could go on and on, but I'll try to contain myself! I use it around the house when Maria is fussy but I need to get things done. I've used it to go for walks on our uneven county roads which are not too good for pushing a stroller. Some of the highlight hikes with the carrier were at the Sleeping Bear Dunes in Michigan and the redwoods in California. In both cases a stroller would not have worked so no baby carrier = no hikes = sad Sue. Ergo baby carrier = nice, long hikes = happy Sue.

In an attempt to be balanced I will say that I'm not sure this carrier would be the best for a longer hike (6 or more miles) with an older (and heavier!) child. It holds the child right next to your body so it could get really hot and sweaty. I think one of the backpack style carriers might be best if you were planning on going to a national park, for example, and doing lots of longer hikes with an older child. Some of the backpack style carriers have sun and rain canopies and even bug netting which could be important in those conditions.

Trash the Dress!

On the flight back from a very fun trip to visit my sis in sunny CA (pictures will be coming soon!), I became aware of a new and intriguing trend in solving the wedding dress dilemma. Whatever are you supposed to do with it after the wedding? I had hoped to rent a dress to avoid this dilemma entirely, but the wedding dress rental shop in town had long gone out of business by the time I got married. The dress is hanging in a closet in the spare bedroom, but that room will eventually be needed when our family grows (just to make sure no rumors are started, we are neither expecting nor expecting to be expecting anytime soon!). Given my feelings about my mother's dress (a homemade mid-thigh number from 1970), I'm under no illusion that Maria will someday want my dress. I'm not particularly sentimental so I tried to sell my dress or give it to a friend, but to no avail. I could always drop it off at Goodwill, but somehow I'm just not happy with that option.

Now a whole new door has opened and I for one am excited! The airline magazine had a short article about a website called "trash the dress" featuring brides relieving the stress of their weddings by destroying their wedding dresses in various ways. The forum has even better pictures in my opinion and you definitely need to check out this video involving paint and an 80s dress with uber-puffy sleeves!

Mark and I were discussing the concept of destroying one's wedding dress in a spectacular way and while attracted to the idea, we both felt somewhat disconcerted by the wastefulness of the act. Why destroy a perfectly good dress? Just today a dear friend (who also happens to be a photographer) were discussing dress trashing and she had an awesome point of view. One can think of this as an act of creating, not destroying. You are creating art, creating pictures, creating memories. Since we aren't the original Creator, we must create out of something, and sometimes the raw materials are a bit costly!

This winter I hope to clean out some closets. And sometime this spring I hope to create some crazy fun memories with my dress, mud, daffodils and Maria! (Or possibly wait a few years and go to Las Vegas with Alicia, Judy, Christy and Marjorie to paint the town red in our white dresses, just like these ladies!)

No "Mom of the Year" Award for me!

It all started several weeks ago on a Wednesday when I couldn't get Maria down for her afternoon nap until 1:30pm. It was a struggle to get her down and so she fell asleep later than usual. Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but I really needed (conversation with other adults is not merely a want, but a need some days!) to go to the bible study at the next door neighbor's home at 2pm. And I didn't want a cranky baby.

So at 1:55pm I grabbed my bible and the baby monitor (thankfully a long distance one!) and started slowly walking toward the neighbor's house. Though the static increased, the monitor didn't start making angry out-of-range beeps until I reached Kathy's front porch. I walked inside and the monitor sometimes had contact and sometimes didn't. I was absolutely determined to make this crazy idea of mine work and so eventually located a particular spot on the banister of the stairs in the living room where there was reception. With a little help from some tape, the monitor stayed in contact and I stayed at the study until 3:30 when I heard happy, wakeful noises coming from the monitor. I ran back home, changed Maria's diaper and we both came back for the tail end of the study!

So yes, I left my baby at home, ALONE for over an hour! Thankfully I'm not Brittany Spears because the paparazzi would be all over this, not to mention DCFS. When I told this story to a fellow mom and understanding friend, she said "you won't win any Mom of the Year awards for that one!" She explained that this was a compliment and that her husband used this phrase to describe sanity-saving but unorthodox methods of caring for one's child. I totally love the phrase and have decided to chronicle some of these non-Mom-of-the-Year moments!

To top that episode, this weekend Mark, Maria and I went to Chicago to spend the weekend with a dear friend from Seattle, Alicia. We had a great afternoon walking along the waterfront, enjoying the warm October day. As evening drew near, Maria became fussy so we headed back to the Westin on Michigan Avenue (thank you, Priceline!) to put Maria to sleep.

The plan was for Mark to stay with Maria while Alicia and I went out on the town. As you can imagine, staying in a hotel room with a sleeping baby is far from exciting. Maria needs darkness and silence to sleep and she goes to sleep around 7pm, nixing all hope of TV-watching, book reading and the like. While we were unpacking and getting Maria ready for bed, I noticed that the closet was a fairly good size. Upon closer inspection, I discovered our pack-n-play (Maria's travel bed) did indeed fit in the closet!

To make a long story short, I left my baby in a closet (a 4 star closet, mind you!) while I went out on the town for some serious shopping and a scrumptious dessert with a dear friend! Mark was in the hotel room so we didn't leave her alone, but she did sleep in the closet all night! I have to admit I'd do it again in a heartbeat! And yes, I do know how lucky I am to have such an awesome husband!

Maria's First Modeling Gig

But it might not be her last, given that she was still in the 99th percentile for height at her 6 month check up! She's now 29 inches tall, 16.5 pounds and as of today has three teeth! Stats aside, a dear friend of ours is starting a photography business and thus Maria has become a model. See if you can find all four pictures of her on Leyla's website!

Here are some amazing samples of her work that didn't make it to the website...

Sunroom Sundries

It's been an interesting few days in our sun room. Happily it has been getting cool enough that we've been able to go out there in the mornings and evenings. Last night I noticed a praying mantis on the sun room door.

This morning it had been joined by another praying mantis... I took a closer look and indeed they were doing what bugs do on the Nature Channel. I dimly remembered learning something quite horrible in high school biology class about praying mantises and I was scared.

I hoped against hope that my memory was wrong. But I couldn't be sure if it was or it wasn't. The uncertainty of it all drew me (against my better judgment!) to check back on the mantises throughout the day.

At first they were continuing to do what they had been doing. Then the moment came when all my fears were realized. I don't think I want to fully explain what happened, but it involved cannibalism... go ask your biology teacher for details. After my dreaded suspicion was confirmed I no longer checked back, but I did hum taps for the male praying mantis.

The wikipedia entry on praying mantids was quite interesting. Apparently one can keep them as pets and feed them crickets. (Mattox, are you reading this?) I started thinking that might be a fun sort of science project to do with Maria when she gets older - keep a praying mantis in a little terrarium and feed it crickets. There certainly is no shortage of crickets here among the corn and soybean fields! But now I'm wondering if this feeding of crickets would be too gross and would scar Maria for life. I figure as her mother I'm totally doomed... no matter what I do I'll scar her for life in somehow, but I'd like to keep the damage as minimal as possible!

PS. This picture was taken before anything too terrible happened. The odd part is that the female was missing one arm, but that didn't stop her from doing what she did. Such aggressive little critters!

Food, Glorious Food

Last week at covenant group Maria was intently watching everyone eat and at one point tried to swipe a bread stick out of my hand! That's when I decided to start giving her real food in addition to her usual diet of "happy juice" (breast milk). Since happy juice requires no preparation, no cleanup, almost no extra packing when traveling and is virtually free, I hadn't been looking forward to complicating our lives with real food. But raising a child definitely isn't all about what's convenient for me, so I grudgingly bought some brown rice cereal and attempted the first feeding on Thursday.

Yes, feeding solids is horribly messy, but to my surprise I found that it's also completely hilarious and loads of fun when in the right mood! Maria made crazy faces, tried to bite the spoon and promptly evicted all of the rice cereal from her mouth with her tongue after every attempt. Things went about the same on the second day, but I discovered that she loves to play with the bowl and spoon. I'm going to give rice cereal one more try and then conclude that she just doesn't like the stuff. I tried some out of curiosity and it's pretty nasty... rather like bland, gloppy glue. Maybe she'll like pureed veggies better.