new friend, old friend, good night's sleep

yesterday, we had a play date with bebe's new friend thayer. thayer's mom hilary is an old friend of mine from middle school. we hadn't seen each other since, until we reconnected on facebook. thayer is 9 months old, a super cute chubby redhead. bebe is starting to show real interest in other babies and when we first arrived she had nothing but smiles for him.

after some chit chat to break the ice we put them down on the floor together to really get to know each other. bebe scratched thayer on the face, but he seemed to forgive her. i hope so -- we want to hang out with him and hilary again soon!

* * * * *

when you are stuck in the hell of sleep deprivation, and you're beginning to think you'll never get out, people who have older babies or kids already out of babyhood tell you that once you introduce solid foods, your baby will start sleeping better at night. it turns out, they were right! a few bites of broccoli was all it took -- last night, bebe didn't wake up to nurse until 4 am, and then she went back to sleep in her crib until 6. i'm not expecting this to be a new trend (because i don't want to be disappointed if it's not!), but for one night, it sure was a nice change from her waking up to nurse at midnight and at 3 and then getting up around 5. we are both feeling GREAT this morning!

dinner time

well, we're on day three of solid foods. yesterday afternoon a poopy diaper revealed that the day before, bebe marie had indeed managed to ingest some carrot. i learned from all of my reading on baby led weaning that it can often take babies a whole bunch of tries before any food actually makes it into their bellies, so we were impressed.

although the general recommendation is to introduce one food at a time and only give that food for several days, to make sure the baby doesn't have a reaction to it, i am being surprisingly (if you know me and know how worried, neurotic, obsessive, choose your adjective, i am) cavalier about it. part of the point of BLW is to feed your baby whatever you yourself are eating, and we eat different things every day. so, on saturday bebe had carrot because that was what was in our stew. yesterday she had some avocado with me at lunch. this afternoon, while on a play date, i was eating an apple and i gave it to her for a while. she held it between her hands, licked it, and somehow managed to gum off some little bits. and tonight, she had some broccoli from our dinner.

i had expected that introducing bebe to solid foods would be a bittersweet experience for me. from the moment of her conception she has needed nothing but me to grow and thrive, and although i hope to nurse her for a long time, the beginning of the transition to solid foods nonetheless marks another separation, another phase of her becoming her own person. i have found, however, that so far there is no "bitter" in this transition for me. i'm not sure if i'd feel the same way if we were doing the traditional rice cereal and purees, but watching her learn to eat food all on her own is an amazing experience. i am so proud of her i feel like i could burst. she is such a big girl, and she's working so hard to figure it all out.

watch:

fun with daddy

the joys of sitting

now that bebe is sitting up with confidence, she has gotten even easier, if such a thing is possible. as long as there are toys within her reach, she will sit contentedly and play while i do my own thing.

the other day i sat her down right in the middle of the bed while i folded laundry. she was having such a good time by herself that when i was done, i lay down next to her and read a magazine. she played there for an hour (and didn't fall over once!).

she'll also sit happily and play in the living room, although i put the boppy behind her there because the floor is so hard, even with the carpet. two days in a row, she played for half an hour while i got dinner ready.

and her crib is a great place to practice sitting while i put away clean diapers and clothes.

and, in food news, bebe tried avocado today. although it was slippery and a bit difficult for her to get into her mouth, she appeared to really like it. she growled happily the entire time she was in her high chair.

solids

as josh mentioned in his blog post today, bebe has been showing a real interest in food for a while now. people eating, people drinking -- she finds it endlessly fascinating. so, we decided that it was time to introduce her to solid foods. the recommended age for doing so is six months, and if you've been following along at home you know that bebe marie will be six months old on wednesday (side note: how is that possible? can time slow down just a little bit? please?). close enough.

however, we have no interest in starting her off with rice cereal and other pureed foods. instead, we plan to introduce solid food to her using the baby-led weaning approach, which is so named because it originated in the UK, where the term "weaning" means introducing solids, not ending nursing. the basic idea is that right from the beginning, babies are given table food and allowed to feed themselves. it's perfectly safe, assuming the foods given are soft and gummable, and it appeals to me for several reasons. first and foremost, it allows the baby to decide whether and how much to eat, rather than getting spoonfuls of mush shoved into her mouth. secondly, it's a hell of a lot easier -- i can make one meal for all three of us, and we can all sit down to eat together. josh and i get to enjoy our own food while bebe is free to eat hers or not, as she wishes. finally, it's my hope that by feeding bebe whatever we're eating, rather than starting off her relationship to solids with the idea that there is "kid's food" and "grownup's food," we'll increase the likelihood of having a child who likes a wide range of tastes and textures, rather than a victim of the "nefarious chicken-finger pandemic," as it was described in a new york times article last year.

anyway. this is just all to explain why these pictures, of bebe eating solid food for the first time, show her munching on a carrot. don't worry, it was fully cooked and soft, plucked out of our beef and barley stew and rinsed off under some cool water.


we started her off in the high chair with a cup of water. she didn't quite understand what to do with it, but when i held it up to her mouth she did swallow a little bit, mostly by accident.



then we put some cut-up carrot on her tray. she was still more interested in the cup.

she also wondered, what's up with the cameras, mom and dad?

eventually, she noticed the carrots, but she couldn't pick the tiny pieces up.

i had originally cut the carrot up because at the last second i got cold feet about letting her control the feeding herself, and worried that if i gave her a longer piece she'd choke on it. but once it was clear that she couldn't do anything with the little pieces, i gave her a longer spear that she could hold in her hand.

she examined it for a minute,

and then put it right in her mouth.

these pictures don't tell the whole story -- she did gag a couple times, which my research on BLW had led me to expect as normal and nothing to worry about. she puked all over herself but got right back to the business at hand, sucking on the carrot and gumming little pieces off. i have no idea if any of it made it into her belly, but that wasn't really the point. in fact, there's a saying that "until they're one, food's just for fun" -- that is, babies are supposed to receive all their nutrition in the first year of life from breastmilk or formula. giving them solid foods, up until their first birthday, is just to introduce them to different tastes and textures, to explore and have fun.

in that respect, bebe's first foray into the world of solid food was a definite success.

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please help save handmade toys!

the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which goes into effect in February, was intended to improve the safety of children's toys, and other items intended for use with kids, after the series of lead-paint recalls in recent years. among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in children's products, mandates third party testing and certification, and requires manufacturers of all goods for children under the age of 12, to permanently label each item with a date and batch number.


sounds great, right?

the problem with the CPSIA is that the only companies who will be able to afford the testing, and the inclusion of batch labels, are the big companies whose irresponsible manufacturing practices caused this mess to begin with.

smaller companies that have been producing quality, handmade toys free of toxins (like the ones bebe is playing with in all these pictures), will likely be forced out of business. european manufacturers, who have likewise been producing toxin-free toys all along, will stop importing to the US.

the small local toy shops (like our favorite, hatched in JP) that have been making these products available to concerned parents will have to close once their suppliers go out of business.

and that's not all. the CPSIA will also make the sale, or donation to charities, of used baby gear, toys, and even children's clothing illegal. this will have an enormous impact on the many, many families who depend on secondhand items and will also result in many more thousands of tons of (perfectly usable) "trash" being dumped in our landfills.

if this makes you as mad as it does me, here are some things you can do:

1) Email or call the CPSIA - the office of the CPSC ombudsman 888-531-9070.
http://www.cpsc.gov/cgibin/newleg.aspx
Comments on Component Parts Testing accepted through January 30, 2009.
mailto:Sec102ComponentPartsTesting@cpsc.gov.

2) Email or snail mail your representatives.
http://capwiz.com/americanapparel/issues/alert/?alertid=12274476

3) Call your representatives. For their contact information just enter your zip code.
http://capwiz.com/americanapparel/dbq/officials/

4) Make your voice heard by voting on this issue. The top 3 in each category will be presented to President-elect Obama.
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia

5) Sign the petition.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/economicimpactsofCPSIA/index.html

6) Spread the word! Tell others about this issue and encourage them to do the same.

_

doing time

her crime? involuntary cuteness in the first degree.

_

how things are: a report from the parenting trenches

i'm not sure there could be anything on earth as delightful as parenting a five-and-a-half-month-old baby. at least, nothing as delightful as parenting this five-and-a-half-month-old baby.

she is happy virtually all the time. she smiles at her toys, at the cat, at random corners of the room. she can spend twenty minutes sucking on the corner of a stuffed animal, or putting her binky in and out of her mouth, or lying on the floor, squealing and blowing raspberries until her entire face is dotted with spit.


nothing makes her happier than catching sight of me or her daddy. when he comes home at the end of the day her entire face lights up and she makes this noise of excitement where she inhales and squeals at the same time. i take her into the bathroom with me when i shower and play peekaboo with her as she sits contentedly in her chair. each time my face pops out from behind the shower curtain she smiles as though she hasn't seen me in a week. on sunday i went out shopping alone, leaving bebe home with josh for the longest period of time we've ever been apart: three and a half hours. when i walked in the door, she was standing up in josh's lap on the couch and she did this unbelievable happy dance, her feet going a mile a minute as she smiled broadly at me, clenching her fists and arching her back.

i can barely remember, now, how stressful things were for a few months. when she was fussy for hours at a time, when she wouldn't nap, when i felt like i was going to keel over from exhaustion and she wouldn't. let. me. put. her. down. now, an entire day can go by and the only time she cries is for two minutes after i put her in her crib for a nap, until she falls asleep. her naps are getting longer and more predictable and she wakes from them happy and ready to get right back to the business of being adorable.


it's even harder to remember the very earliest days, when my nipples were cracked and bloody and i needed to practice my labor breathing whenever she ate. our nursing relationship now is so easy, so comfortable, so sweet. she knows what i'm asking when i say, "do you want to nurse?" and she buries her face into my chest to let me know that she does. it's so nice to have these moments throughout the day, when we sit down and are quiet and snuggle together, sharing this amazing connection. i hope to maintain it for a long time. (current WHO recommendations are to breastfeed children for a minimum of two years.)


the big challenge of recent weeks has been bebe's early morning wakings. we finally arrived at a solution that is working well for us right now. when she stirs, anywhere between 4 and 5 a.m., i go get her and bring her back into bed with us, where we lie down and i nurse her. she falls back to sleep for another hour or more, and the fact that we are all getting more sleep is only one of the benefits of this new arrangement. bebe and i get to snuggle together while we sleep, which has to be one of the best feelings ever. even better, though, is getting to wake up with her. as she begins to stir, she starts warming up her voice, her little coos getting louder and longer as she turns from side to side, batting at me and at josh in turn until we open our eyes and return her smiles. a couple days ago, she woke up blowing raspberries, for crying out loud.

as josh said to me recently, "i wish we could just take every day and freeze it." i know the months and years ahead will be full of their own joys, and i do look forward to watching bebe grow. but i am in no hurry. i'm fully enjoying right now.

"she never wears the same outfit twice!"

this observation has been made by more than one person about miss beatrix marie. now, it's not technically true -- anyone who reads the daily bebe regularly knows that she does, in fact, wear outfits more than once. she wears some of my favorites several times a week! but the spirit of the observation is true -- bebe does have a lot of clothes. (this is a good thing not only because she always looks adorable, but because it prolongs the time we can go between loads of laundry.) the newest addition to her wardrobe, and instant entrant into the "cutest clothes, size 6-12 months" competition, is this outfit which arrived in the mail a couple days ago from our friends tom and stephanie. we were supposed to see them for christmas dinner but dinner was cancelled (and we left early anyways) due to the power outage, so they sent along this gift.

not only is it a cute, gender-neutral addition to her largely pink wardrobe (we like pink, but not to the exclusion of all other colors and styles!), it is quite possibly the softest, most snuggliest velour i have ever touched. as you can imagine, i've been touching (and squeezing) it all day long.

anatomy lesson

so, today bebe lay down to tickle the ivories a bit, and --

what?

you don't play the piano naked? huh, that's weird.

no, seriously, what happened was beebs was having some naked bottom time and, as she does during approximately 50% of NBT, she peed all over her shirt. so anyway, there she was after i took her wet shirt off, naked, and i got to thinking. at some point soon this kid is going to start understanding and learning language (from what i've read this begins somewhere around six months, which is in -- yikes! ten days!). we should probably start calling body parts by their real names.

i don't mean the private parts, we don't have silly names for those because i think it's important to label them correctly for kids. however, this belief of mine does not appear to extend to the neck, chest, stomach, bellybutton, thighs, or feet.

see the diagram below for details (if you click on it, it will enlarge so you can read the labels).

baby sausages

this afternoon, angela and ocean came up from providence to visit. we hung out at home for a while and then strapped the girls into their babyhawks and went out for a walk. it was great to get some exercise (for the moms) and some sleep (for the babies), but it sure was cold out there. we had to bundle bebe and ocean up in their snowsuits, and when we came back inside and put them down, we decided that they looked like a couple of baby sausages. tasty and delicious.

they thought this was pretty funny,



until we said that we were going to cook them up for dinner.

oh silly babies, don't look so scared. we were just kidding!

_

mmmmm, plastic

we missed uncle seth when we were up at grammy and grampy's house to exchange gifts last weekend, so he came down to visit today. he brought gift cards for each of us and bebe agreed that gift cards make the best gifts!

she doesn't seem to get how they work, though. to her, it was just another fun thing to chew on.

thanks, uncle seth!

_

happy new year!

saying goodbye to 2008 is bittersweet. i don't think there will ever be a year that could top this one. i feel sure that at the end of my life, when i look back and take stock of everything that happened to me and to the world in which i lived, the birth of beatrix marie and the election of barack obama will stand out as the two most important events -- one personally, the other globally.

at the same time, so much of 2008 cannot be left behind soon enough. many more thousands killed in a meaningless war, the triumph of hatred and bigotry in the passage of Prop. 8, and the ever-deepening economic crisis, in which the middle and working classes are now paying for eight years of deregulation and tax cuts that benefitted the rich.

but 2009 may give us all the chance to begin to set things aright, and it will have its own gifts, too. we will say goodbye and good riddance to george w. bush, and witness the inauguration of the nation's first african american president. and on a much smaller scale, it promises to be a year of firsts. i look forward to sharing them with you!