Garden 2014

This photo pretty much shows what has happened in my garden so far this year. My daffodils came up again this year. And Lucy sometimes joins me as I try to get a little done. I've already introduced her to my barefoot and big hat gardening style.

I do have plans for this year's garden, but nothing like the great expansion last year. I'm adding a couple of blocks of width to the Ghetto, and I'd like a stand for my water barrels so that I get better water pressure, but that's all the building I have in mind. I bought some broccoli and Brussels sprout plants to transplant into my garden. I didn't get seeds started in February, so I'm taking a shortcut. I am starting seeds for tomatoes, beans, and squashes that won't be planted for a while. One of my strawberry pots broke, so I'm transplanting the plants to the front bed where I plant snap peas. I plan to plant root veggies, hearty greens, and snap peas this week. Ater that I'll finish cleaning and prepping the Pea Haven, Annex, and Squash Ghetto for planting later this spring. And I'll probably remulch the blueberry patch, which is looking even more promising this year.

Lucy, Matt, and I are going to have to negotiate how much time I have to garden this spring and summer. I will garden. Not only do I enjoy it and benefit from the exercise and the produce I get, but I also read that there's a study that shows that digging in dirt helps with depression symptoms. That seems like plenty of reasons for my gardening time to be a family priority.

Eat It Up with a Spoon

At Lucy's 4-month check up, the pediatrician said we could start spoon feeding Lucy  some rice cereal mixed with breast milk. He said it was about getting her used to texture rather than supplementing her diet for nutritional reasons. So we tried it. Lucy loved the spoon--she was willing to sip breast milk or herbal tea from a spoon--but she kept spitting out the rice cereal. We tried it again a few days later and a time or two after that, but she didn't like it.

I did let her start tasting liquids: beef broth, fresh lemon juice, Candycane Lane herbal tea. She liked them all. So when she showed interest in my pureed squash soup, I gave her a little. She loved it! She even sucked the dried bits off the spoon. I was impressed, especially since I had added sweet curry powder to the soup to make it more interesting. (There's a certain line of cooks in my family who like to experiment to make things "interesting.") The next day I added more curry powder to my soup, and when she tried it, she still really liked it. The next day I had ginger carrot soup, which she also liked. That's how I figured out that she just didn't like plain rice cereal. After that she tried and liked cran-apple and cran-grape juices. I would have thought the cranberry would be too bitter, but she thought it was great. So we decided it was OK to try solids other than rice cereal.

Avocado
When we went out for Mexican food, Lucy wanted to eat, too, so I mashed up some of the avocado that Matt didn't want on his fish tacos. Success! We took the leftover avocado home and fed it to her for a few days. I even tried mixing some rice cereal into the avocado, and she ate it.

Oatmeal Cereal
On my sister Kristin's advice, I bought Lucy some baby oatmeal cereal. Unlike the rice cereal, she would eat that plain.

Sweet Potatoes
Next I mashed some sweet potatoes for her. She wasn't impressed even after I added curry powder. We'll try it again sometime.

Peaches
I looked at what baby food flavors Kroger had that looked good. I bought two jars each of peach and mango. They sounded good to me. We tried the peach, and Lucy liked it. I then tried mixing in some oatmeal cereal, and that was a huge hit. It makes sense. I really like Quaker's peach almond oatmeal and granola bars. A week or two later I served her a pouch version of peach baby food, and she ate the whole pouch in two days. She never eats that much. She really likes peaches.

Squash
Kristin had given me several jars of unopened baby food that my nephew Alton didn't need, so I got those out of the closet. Lucy liked squash baby food, especially with curry powder and rice cereal mixed in. It made her smell like an Indian restaurant, partially because she got it on her ear and under her chin and we didn't find it until bathtime.

Kiwi
At church on Sundays, we have food and fellowship after service. This week there was kiwi fruit, so I mashed up some of the part without seeds and fed it to her. She liked it. I watched her pretty closely after that one. I know of people with kiwi allergies. But Lucy had no reaction.

Apple
When we were at Target in Louisville, I bought some apple baby food in a pouch and got an attachable spoon. It's pretty handy for on-the-go feeding. I fed Lucy apples between shopping stops, and she loved it. However, she seems to have eaten too much and to have inherited my family's reaction to apples. She had the biggest diaper blow out ever. I had to clean poop off of her legs, down to her calves, before actually opening the diaper. So we're cautious with the apples now.

Mango
Lucy LOVES mango! Her first taste was a pineapple mango smoothie from McDonald's. The post-apple diaper blowout was cleaned up in a McDonald's bathroom, and it was so traumatic for both of us that I bought and shared a smoothie. She loved it. Several days later she was getting fussy at Walmart and we still had errands to run, so I bought and shared a mango juice drink. She loved it. And I bought a different mango juice brand on sale yesterday and put it in a cup with a straw. She learned to drink from a straw just so she could get to the mango juice. This morning I gave her some mango baby food. She's not a big fan of that. I can't blame her. It tastes really processed and not fresh, especially compared to the good mango drinks she's had.

Banana
Matt and I don't like bananas, so I tried really hard to sell them as yummy. I want her to like everything if possible. I don't want our preferences to limit her. But she doesn't like bananas much either. The first time she tried them, she spit them out. The second time she swallowed a little. And every time since she's mostly spit them out. I'll try mixing them with oatmeal and/or adding spices to see if we get a different result.

Carrots
She liked them just fine. The last time I served them with ginger powder mixed in, and she liked them even more.

Pears
She likes them. She makes faces when she eats them, but she keeps opening her mouth for more. That means she really likes them. The last time I served them with pumpkin pie spice mixed in. She liked her "fancy pears." I liked them, too.

Green Beans
Baby food green beans have the same problem as mango. All the happy vegetable freshness is missing. She ate green beans but wasn't excited about them. I tried mixing in garlic powder, but she didn't care. She hasn't eaten much baby food for a couple of days. I'm not sure if the problem is the food or her appetite. I'll certainly try green beans again. I thought the garlic helped them quite a bit.

Apple Blueberry
I expected a better response. She was willing to eat a little but wasn't eager. I tried mixing it with oatmeal and didn't get a better response. I'm not sure if it's appetite or taste preference that caused her lack of enthusiasm. I didn't push her to eat much. I remember the last apple incident.

What's Next?
Now that she's tried quite a few things, I can give her some mixtures that will allow her to try new foods with old ones we know she can tolerate. I've got jars or pouches of pear-spinach, carrot-corn, apple-guava, pear-peach-strawberry, and apple-broccoli. I also found some green pea and mint baby food at Big Lots. That's a classic combination I'd like to sample. I'll try other herbs and spices. I've got quite a few. Sage would be good with the squash. Perhaps cilantro in some avocado. I've considered making a tea of herbs and using it to thin the food instead of adding fibrous herbs directly to the baby food. I'll try cooking and mashing some fresh veggies to see if she likes that better than the jarred baby food. And who knows what we may come across at a restaurant. Ethiopian greens or cabbage? A taste of hummus or falafel? We're excited that she seems to be an adventurous eater because we like all kinds of food. Eventually, she should be able to eat produce from my garden: turnips, peas, green beans. That's one of the things I'm looking forward to most.

My Baby Makes Me Puke

There are many things about babies that you could say might make you want to puke (typically figuratively speaking): poopy diapers, curdled milk spit into your cleavage. But Lucy literally makes me need to puke. OK, so it's not just Lucy. It's partially from falling at KMart and having a C-section (not at the same time). But Lucy makes it happen more frequently. I should start at the beginning (or at least a little earlier in the middle).

For a while, even before Lucy was born, I've been having what I call "digestive episodes." First, it feels like heartburn. Antacids don't help. And it gets worse as pain starts in my back and ribs. A few times it has ended with a bowel movement (which made me think it was constipation), but most of the time it ends with vomiting. The last few times I've made myself vomit after several hours of pain so that the episode would pass and let me get back to caring for Lucy. (Last time I held her to try to bring on the vomiting--holding holding Lucy makes me feel worse--but I gave her to Matt before the actual vomiting started.)  I've considered that the problem was gall bladder or poor diet. I even noticed that it happened about the same time every month and thought it might be hormonal. But I decided to ask my chiropractor about it since there's back and rib pain. He said pressure in the mid-back can cause my symptoms. Of course, you'd expect a chiropractor to say something like that, but I decided to go with that answer for now because it doesn't involve lots of expensive medical tests. And I already knew I have mid-back issues. I asked the chiropractor what I could do if an episode struck when his office wasn't open, and he showed me some stretches. On Monday, I started having an "episode" in the afternoon and was able to make an appointment with the chiropractor half an hour later. I tried the stretches before we went to the chiropractor's office, and they helped a little bit. When the chiropractor adjusted me, I popped all over the place, top to bottom, especially in my mid-back. When I got home, I took a nap and woke up feeling fine. No vomiting necessary. I think the chiropractor might be right about my back causing my digestive issues.

What would be ideal is to prevent the episodes altogether. That may be tricky. I will try to strengthen my back muscles, but my back is permanently jacked up because of an accident. When I worked at KMart after my first year of college, I fell carrying boxes and because my arms were full, my torso caught all my weight as I landed on an empty wooden pallet. I knocked some ribs out of place and injured my mid-back. For several years, I needed regular adjustments to nudge the ribs back in place. And my mid-back problems are still the ones most likely to send me to the chiropractor. (I've also had injuries to my neck and tail bone, which get adjusted at the same appointments, but which don't usually cause me to make appointments.) I asked a chiropractor years ago if there was anything I could do to fix my back, and he said that my back is hyper-flexible, which makes it easy to get out of whack. So there's no easy fix.

My only solution is to change what I do so that I can try to keep my mid-back from getting out of whack as often. And that's where Lucy comes in. My episode on Monday came after Matt had been out of town and I was the only one picking Lucy up for several days. I was also trying to get her to sleep in her crib, which meant extra lifting. I think that's why my back was in such bad shape and set off an episode. And yesterday I was carrying her to the kitchen to find myself something to eat and regurgitated into my mouth. I promptly put her down and was fine. (See. My baby makes me puke.)  Carrying Lucy puts a lot of pressure on my mid-back, so I've been trying to carry her less. I carry her directly to some place and set her down instead of holding her while I'm doing something. Fortunately, she's getting pretty good at playing by herself, so I can leave her in the living room while I heat her baby food and do other little tasks like that. I also try not to run errands with her any more than I have to. Getting her into and out of the car is tough. Matt is picking up the slack by picking Lucy up more often. He transports her like he did after I had the C-section. (The C-section didn't help my core stability and so is also part of the back problem.) Unfortunately, the inability to lift her has set back our sleeping plans a little. We were trying to get her used to the crib, but that's too much lifting for me, so she sleeps part of the time on a mattress on the floor and part of the time with me in the recliner. At least my goal of being able to put her down and get other things done is met. Today I got a lot of cleaning done in the kitchen while she napped on the mattress for an hour and a half.

Other than not carrying Lucy, the only things I've figured out to do are to regularly stretch my back as the chiropractor showed me and to go for adjustments as soon as something feels out of whack instead of waiting for an episode.

I feel bad that I can't carry Lucy around, but I try to make sure that we sit together to make up for the other holding that she's missing. There is a silver lining: she gets more practice being alone for a minute or two at a time and entertaining herself as well as more time with her daddy, both of which are good things. And a puke-free momma is certainly a good thing for all of us.

Post-Shopping Update: What Lucy Needs for Spring/Summer 2014

While we were in Louisville to transport Matt to and from the airport, Lucy and I went to Once Upon a Child, a store that sells gently used children's gear and clothing. We got some of the things on our list, so I thought I'd update the list on the blog. 

Now that she has a dress, cardigan, white tights, and shoes, I think we're ready for Easter. I also got dress-like rompers and white sandals, all of which are appropriate for everyday or for church. 

I've had trouble finding nice dress socks, which would be good for church when it gets too warm for tights. The ones I've seen seem like cotton socks with lace tacked on. I was hoping for something cuter.

I'm a big fan of denim overalls. They are cute and very versatile. She mostly wears one-piece outfits, but her overalls are our second favorite. Her 3-6 month pair will fit a little while longer, but we'll want a 6-9 pair.


She's outgrowing her baby towels, so we need some toddler size hooded towels. The kinds that look like animal heads are our favorites. This pirate octopus one is especially fun.

6 Month Appointment: Perfectly Toothless

Today was Lucy's 6 month checkup.

Her Stats
Her head is 16.5 inches (42nd %). She is 26 inches long (56th %) and weighs 15 lbs, 12 oz. (43rd %). She grew 1.25 inches and gained 2 lbs, 4.5 oz. in two months. Her weight jumped from the 31st percentile to the 43rd. Such a big girl!

Lucy is always great at the doctor's office. There are so many people looking at her and talking to her and holding her. She loves it. She was fascinated with stethoscopes this time. She tried to pull one off her chest when the nurse was checking her pulse. And she tried to eat the doctor's when he was listening to her heart and lungs. She was so excited that she dropped her Sophie giraffe that she had been chewing on.

We saw a new pediatrician at the same office we've been going to. I kind of missed Dr. Mike. The new doctor was a little obsessed with Lucy's lack of teeth. She's been chewing and drooling for a couple of months, but her gums show no signs of erupting teeth. He thought she should be progressing faster and warned that all of her teeth may come in at the same time and be very painful. That doesn't sound like fun.

He asked if I had any questions, and I always have questions about piddly things. Dr. Mike has three kids, so he's able to give advice beyond medical opinion. This is when I really missed Dr. Mike.
Q. Does her belly button look like it has a scab?
A. Try washing it when you give her a bath. (We do occasionally.)

Q. Is there something we should do for the baby acne that's still on her nose? (It is much improved.)
A. There's not a medicine I can give you. (I didn't expect one.) Does anyone kiss her nose? (I don't think so.) That could cause an infection. Try some antibacterial cream.

Q. She scratches at her face and eyes to keep herself awake. Do you know of any way to help her stop that?

A. Mittens. It could be her teeth. Pain relief might help. (She's been scratching her face and pulling her hair longer than she's been drooling. At least now she's more gentle and rarely pulls her hair.)

He said she's doing everything a 6 month old should do and is very cute. Right before he left he said, "By her next visit, she should have teeth." Again with the teeth!

To be clear, I am not worried about Lucy's lack of teeth. I was slow of tooth. I didn't lose my first tooth until the second semester of first grade. My last tooth came out in 7th grade, and my last permanent tooth didn't grow in until 8th grade. (For a year I had a distinct "good side." On one side I had a perfect smile; on the other I looked like a hillbilly.) When I got home, I checked my baby book and found I was 8-9 months old when I got my first teeth. This doctor was way more concerned about several things than I was. For example, Lucy has a little red dot on her chest, like a beauty mark only red. The doctor called it a hemangioma (which it very well might be) and said it might get bigger before it disappears. First, hemangioma sounds way scarier than "benign tumor with lots of blood vessels." Second, I have the same red dot on my chest, slightly different location but same dot. Despite the scary name, I'm not scared of her red dot and would not be surprised if she still has it when she's 33 years old. I guess she must be really perfect if slow teeth and beauty marks are the concerns.

Then the nurse came in to give Lucy her shots. Lucy actually drank the sugar water this time instead of spitting it out. It's clinically proven to lessen babies' experince of pain during injections. And she recovered pretty fast. She's always done pretty well, but this time she didn't babble angrily at the nurse. :) And she didn't need me to nurse her at all or even hold her for long. She didn't even sound like I was torturing her when I put her clothes back on. She always saves her screams for when they leave her alone with me, which makes me feel like everyone thinks I'm abusing her, even though I know they don't think that. But she didn't do that this time. She seems to be following her pattern of post-vaccination drowsiness. Maybe we'll sleep well again tonight. We've had two good nights in a row already.

Lucy's next appointment will be in June, and she won't get any shots. But she will have teeth! :)

Sleeping is Hard Work

I have read the advice "begin as you wish to continue" and think it's excellent advice; however, sometimes you cannot begin as you wish to continue, and then you have to "sleep train" a six month old.

Before Lucy was born, our plan was to have her sleep in a bassinet and eventually move her to a crib when she got a bit bigger (and when we got a crib). But my c-section complicated that. I was unable to lift or carry Lucy for several weeks, so Matt had to be the one to put her into and get her out of the bassinet. And it turned out that Lucy hated the bassinet. And we hated to hear her cry. In those early days, I felt like my soul was being pulled out through my nipple if she cried for very long. It was also very inconvenient to keep putting her in the bassinet and getting her out when she cried a few minutes later. I desperately needed to sleep and couldn't sleep with her crying (between the noise and the sensation of soul extraction). And Matt was working or watching TV at the other end of the house and had to keep running back and forth to drop off or collect the baby a couple times an hour. But it was most inconvenient when Lucy needed something after Matt had gone to bed. I felt so bad about Matt's needing to shuttle Lucy between the bassinet and my recliner minutes after he had finally dropped off to sleep. And some nights it was hard to get his attention to have him return Lucy to the bassinet after she ate. So one night I improvised.

I tried putting Lucy in the bouncy seat next to the recliner. I could pretty much drop her into it, so it didn't involve lifting. But after I set her down, I became afraid that her head would tilt forward and cut off her airway (which can actually happen) and that I would wake up and find my baby dead. The idea of another baby dead due to oxygen deprivation was more than I could stand, so I picked her up again. My only other choice was to keep her with me in the recliner. I considered the risk of dropping or smothering her but decided that neither of us was mobile enough for those to be serious threats. So she curled up, and I laid her on my chest, and we slept. It worked so well that we continued it.

When my parents visited us in October, they brought a cradle built by my great-grandfather. Lucy seemed to like it just fine unless it rocked. Her startle reflex has always been very strong. I had hoped that the cradle would be of a convenient height next to either the recliner in the nursery or our four-poster bed in the bedroom. it wasn't quite right for either. I felt like I had to toss her in while sitting in the recliner or drop her a foot or so from the bed. I wasn't OK with either of those, so I tried getting out of the recliner to put her into or take her out of the cradle. I had healed enough that I could do that, so I did for several nights. However, I was so woozy at the 6:00 feeding every night that I just kept her in the recliner with me from 6:00 until we got up. After I went back to work, I was too tired to deal with the cradle at all. So Lucy continued to sleep with me.

Matt was willing to help with night feedings, which might have made me less woozy at 6:00 a.m., but early on I had some supply issues and couldn't pump enough milk for night bottles. We were having to use pumped milk to feed her during clusterfeedings in the evenings. I was making enough milk, just not when she needed it, so we had to redistribute it. When I went back to work, I had to pump enough for Lucy to eat with the babysitter. It took everything I pumped all day to provide bottles for my time away, so there was no milk for Matt to feed her at night. By the time I was pumping enough for night bottles, Lucy only wanted momma at night.

During our months of co-sleeping, we only had one scary incident. By early December she was big enough that she preferred to sleep next to me in the crook of my arm rather than on my chest. Early one morning I heard a thud and felt an empty space beside me. I looked down and saw Lucy face-down on the wood floor by the recliner. I picked her up before she started to cry, which she did loudly. I immediately started feeding her to calm her. Then I changed her diaper and checked her for damage. There didn't appear to be any, but I took her to work with me to keep an eye on her in case she started exhibiting neurological symptoms. She was fine. I held her a little tighter after that. And a few days later I figured out how she fell. One night she was hungry, and I barely caught her as she launched herself at my breast. Apparently, she had tried to help herself while I was sleeping and overshot my breast and landed on the floor instead. She's clever and independent but overestimates her physical abilities.

We received a crib as a Christmas gift and Lucy seemed to like it just fine, but I was definitely too woozy to get her into and out of a crib several times a night and then get up and go to work the next morning. So she kept sleeping in the recliner with me. We even worked out a way for her to help herself without falling out, so I was able to sleep through a feeding or two. At the time, that's what I needed to continue functioning. And I must admit that I liked snuggling with her as well. But I knew it wasn't in Lucy's best interest to continue our sleeping arrangement. She started to be able to sleep only on me. She even napped on me, so I was unable to get anything done during her naps.  Since my working was making our co-cleeping necessary, it was one of the reasons I quit my part-time job.

So now that I'm home full time, we're working toward self-sufficient sleeping: in her crib, for 6 hours at a time, soothing herself back to sleep, not needing to nurse to fall asleep, and maybe even falling asleep in the crib by herself rather than being moved there when she's already asleep. It's a big goal and not something we could tackle all at once. She had previously proved she was capable of sleeping 6 hours at a time, so we started with trying to get her to sleep somewhere other than on me. I put her crib mattress on the floor and another crib mattress we already owned next to it so that we can sleep next to each other. She could sleep AGAINST me if she wanted but not ON me. We've had varying degrees of success with this. One night she slept 6 hours on her mattress and even fell asleep without nursing. And I've been able to lay her down during naps sometimes and get some work done around the house. But most of the time she wakes as soon as she feels the mattress and isn't comforted by my touch or voice. Only picking her up or feeding her will soothe her. It's exhausting! I could never have done this while holding down a job. By 8:00 I consider the night over and let us nap in the recliner for a couple hours. I try to be consistent, but I have to get some sleep sometime so that I can continue to function, and I get as few as 3 hours some nights. I do see some signs of improvement. I'm more likely to let her cry a little to get her to try to soothe herself. Last night she woke, cried, thrashed about with her eyes closed, rolled over onto her tummy, and promptly fell asleep and stayed asleep for 6 hours. I, however, woke at least every 2 hours to make sure she was still breathing. Yes, I'm still afraid she'll suffocate. But each success is teaching both of us that we can do this. It's hard work, but it's good for both of us.

What Lucy Needs: Spring/Summer 2014

A couple of people have asked what Lucy needs, so I thought I'd let everyone know. We've got plenty of 3-6 month clothes, which she doesn't seem like she'll outgrow for a few weeks unless she has a crazy growth spurt. I have some 6-9 month clothes, but there are a few things I think we'll need/want:

• 1-2 dresses - short sleeve, probably
• white cardigan
• 2-3 rompers (short sleeve one piece with either shorts or pants)
• a package of plain white short sleeve onesies
• denim overalls
• toddler size hooded towels
• plain white sandals (perhaps with covered toes) - size 3
• white dress shoes - probably size 3
• dress socks

Rompers that look like dresses are great because they can do double duty. Next 

We have almost nothing 9-12 months or bigger, so when in doubt, get the larger size so she won't go naked in August. If it's hot enough, she may want to go naked in August.

As far as gear or toys, I try to keep Lucy's Amazon list updated. I think we've got most of what we need. We will want a little umbrella stroller for travel. She has quite a few toys. Right now she mostly plays with a rattle, a car, some linked rings, one or two toys that play music, a couple of balls, and maybe one of her many stuffed animals. When she gets closer to crawling, more active toys will be good. She hasn't been a big fan of books yet, except to eat them, but we think she'll grow into them. I really want her to have a book of nursery rhymes. I'll try to keep the Amazon list updated with books we don't have by authors we like.

So Many Things to Say Eventually

This post is mostly just to get me started again. Now that I'm home full-time, I hope to blog more.  So much has happened. At almost 6 months old, Lucy is sitting independently, babbling fluently, and eagerly trying solid foods. There are so many things to tell about Lucy that it may take me a while to get it all said. To compensate, here are a couple of pictures of Lucy showing off her sitting abilities. And if you aren't Facebook friends with me and Matt, send us a request so that you can see the pictures and status updates that have covered life with Lucy so far.