Our Darling, Growing Child

So lately we have been experiencing a "stage" or something. It has involved a lot more fussiness. (This has not been helped by the diet I've been feeding him which has included a lot of bananas, rice, and applesauce, which apparently can be hard on the digestive system. This fussiness is exhausting! Our usually-happy boy demands way more attention and often isn't even that content when we're paying very close attention to him. Is it teething? That's what some people suggest, but we can't find the trace of a tooth yet, so I don't think so. Some people have also suggested that he's reaching a clingy stage where he mostly just wants his mom. I have tried my best to minimize the clingy stages by allowing many people to hand him (which has been a good attitude for a Beehive teacher since twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are more baby hungry than a newlywed woman), but it may be true because sometimes he has been fussy for other people and calmed down when they handed him back to me. But he is also often fussy for me. Anyway, the real point of this entry is not actually to complain. It's to count our blessings because while we are pulling our hair out a bit, we have lots of fun times with him too because our baby is continuing to grow and develop and learn new things. Therefore, we here present the latest pictures and achievements of our sweet boy.

This is an attempt to capture what we think looks like red hair sometimes. Mostly though it's blond, except when wet and then it's brown.

This is how Dad and Caleb help me put away laundry.

Here is Caleb sitting up on his own.

Here is Caleb with his fan club (two of my Beehive girls). They're teaching him to play the piano.

This is Caleb watching General Conference on Saturday with Aunt Mickie.

Caleb waving. Caleb and Dad are watching General Conference together at Aunt Mickie's house.

This is General Conference on Sunday. We had to listen to it on the radio. In some ways that didn't work too well.

This is Caleb testing out more foods. He's gnawing on a red bell pepper and holding a cucumber. He looks very thoughtful.

Monday night before Easter, we got together with our friends Jay and Libby and their baby (who is just a day older than Caleb) to dye eggs at their place.

This is one of our eggs. Caleb got worn out by all the fun.

Dad and Caleb chilling on the floor.

Caleb dressed for Easter. (Fortunately you can't really tell in this picture that the pants (on this 12 month outfit) are way too long on him.)

Mom and Caleb on Easter.

We watched a lot of movies for about a week there and Caleb often fell asleep during them. This is one of those times. Patrick thought he had the coolest expression. (And I am deliberately sticking my tongue out for the picture, by the way.)

Mostly, he's just darling and we love him and we realize "this too shall pass." We just have to remember the smiles on the days when there are not a lot of them.

And finally, the latest development -- crawling! (sort of)

Dear Moms (Past, Present, and Future)

I have lots of questions about what other moms do. Sometimes, when we are having Caleb hang out while we watch a movie or play a game, I wonder if I should be paying more attention to him. This happens both when he's fussy and when he seems content to be entertaining himself. I often question if I am successfully balancing my personal time both with selfish things like computer time or reading and necessary things like showers and eating with my mothering time. How do you gauge that? How do you feel confident about what you're doing? Do you find ways to involve your child/children in your personal activities or do you let them do their own thing? I wonder how to raise a child who is healthy, independent, and confident as well as one who feels safe, secure, and loved. Do other moms wonder about this? Sometimes I think I will not be so puzzled about this when he's older or when there are more kids in our family, but other times I realize that there will be other problems so I'm sure there will be new blog posts on those questions someday. Plus, that's still some time from now and this baby-period is an important stage in his life, so I'd like to do the best I can figuring out the question of what to do with your first child.

I'm not sure if these questions make sense, but I hope that they're clear. I would love to read either comments or other blog posts about these ideas from anybody with ideas on this subject either from your own experience with your children or babysitting or watching other parents. What do you think? How do you maintain "personal time" and also give your child the time he/she needs with you? Do you even need personal time? Should you only have personal time while your baby is napping or sleeping (which Caleb is right now)? If you aren't paying avid attention to your child for the time being because you're entertaining guests, doing your own thing, or spending time with your spouse should you leave your child to entertain himself as long as he's content to encourage independence? Should you only be concerned when the child is fussy or by then is it too late and it's obvious you've neglected him too long? If that's true, what signs do you use to figure out when he especially wants your attention? How do you figure things like these out? Do other moms wonder about this? And do other moms sometimes feel selfish? And how do you know when it's justified and when it's not?

Perhaps these are silly questions and I wouldn't have asked them when I was a very new mom because I felt like everyone else knew what they were doing, but with the perspective of a few months more of experience (so now I'm only a new mom and not a very new mom) I suspect that other moms have similar questions. Thanks for any feedback either here or in your own blogs.

April Fun and Progress

Caleb

Caleb is now seven months old, and what a good last month he's had developmentally! For the last week or so he has slept anywhere from seven to nine hours straight every night (except once when he woke up at 2:00 am and cried for an hour). This is especially nice for me since I am fighting a cold . . . again. Though it hasn't been the miracle worker I hoped for, I think it has prevented me from getting any more sickly.

In his first month of eating solids, he has improved so that he's actually consuming quite a bit of what I feed him now. This month we have focused on vegetables (except for avocado, which was his first food and is actually a fruit): peas, carrots, sweet potato, green beans, squash, zuchini, broccoli, and red and green bell pepper. He's also had rice cereal, and he liked Gerber's cereal better than my homemade stuff, but I did home prepare the avocado, peas, zuchini, broccoli, and bell peppers. The avocado I just mashed up, but everything else I steamed, then blended, and then froze the extra in ice cube trays. It makes me feel very domestic. A good website about feeding babies I came across is called wholesomebabyfood.com. I haven't followed everything religiously, but I think it has good information and good ideas for baby food "recipes." This month, we are introducing Caleb to fruits. There is no real reason for waiting until he was seven months old, except that our theory is that we'll expose him to lots of vegetables before doing fruit. Why a whole month? Just because Patrick decided it was a good idea. I thought it was silly, but I realized since then that it is fun to look forward to a simple way to celebrate the smaller milestones. I think we'll start with apple sauce and then a pear.

Also, Caleb has learned to sit up. At his last doctor's appointment, the doctor asked if he was sitting up and we said, "Well, no. He doesn't really like it. He would rather stand." It's funny because our perception of what he thought seems to have limited our child's growth. The doctor recommended we help him sit up a little every day and once I started doing that, he picked up on it so fast! Let that be a lesson to us.

The Parents

As far as schools go, Patrick has heard back from more than half of the schools now. He was waitlisted at two of the ones he was most interested in and hasn't yet heard back from the third, so he's now looking at the three that interest him most who have accepted him: William & Mary, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Illinois. The first offered a pretty good financial package and has showed a lot of interest in him. They have also been very professional in getting notices and other information to us quickly and often. And a big plus for me is that it's in historic America, so I anticipate that there will be lots of things to see and do. Madison, of course, is closest to our families which is a draw for both of us. Patrick hasn't heard what they are offering financially yet, but it comes with in-state tuition, so that's nice. They have also been really good about responding to emails Patrick has sent, though their standard notifications via the postal service or emails (including notice of acceptance to their school) are ridiculously slow and irregular. And Illinois is nice because they have offered a good financial package, are the highest of the three in rankings, are not far from family, and might be closest to our friends who are going to Michigan.

While we are waiting for the next stage of our lives, we are not sitting around twiddling our thumbs. No, we are making the most of our summer. Okay, we don't get to hike the Grand Canyon as planned, but we still have a trip planned to Arizona to visit my brother, my niece, her mom, as well as my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. And before that, we are headed to . . . DISNEYLAND! That's right, Disneyland. This took heavy deliberation and debate, but we have decided to go for it. We are going with our friends Dan and Michelle and their little girl. We hope this means we can all get the most out of the roller coaster experience by taking turns watching the kids while we go on rides. We also calculate that this will save each family money in some respects. This is the first vacation we've taken so far (besides single night camping trips) that didn't involve family. And while we love our families, there's something to be said for a different kind of vacation every once in a while. Don't worry: I'm sure there will be lots of pictures to follow.

Four Generations Together

For the first time in his life, Caleb got to be part of a four generation get-together. To date the oldest generation he's met has been his grandparents, but this week my maternal grandparents (his great-grandparents) came to town overlapping a visit from my mom. My mom hadn't seen Caleb since his birth, which she got to witness. As you can imagine, all this familying (yes, I made up that word. I'm an English language major; it ought to be good for something) made for lots of fun. Unfortunately, the fun was somewhat dampened by Caleb experiencing another bout of sickness-- what's this about breastfeeding keeping kids healthier? That and the cold weather made for some limitation in activity, but everyone was wonderful about it and it didn't make a big difference in family bonding.

This isn't related to the family visiting, but I thought I'd let new parents know, don't bother buying fancy toys because whatever you have they will love. I am learning to save boxes and mint containers and water bottles.

Caleb "playing ball." Actually, while sitting at the kitchen table the grandmas and Dad did play ball with Caleb. I don't know if he knew what was going on, but it was still pretty cool.

Grandma feeding Caleb carrots (I think).

Mom feeding Caleb. It's important for the one feeding to make a face while doing the feeding. "Ah . . . ah . . . open up." Other moms totally know what I'm talking about.

"Hello, Grandma. Weren't you here about seven months ago when I was born? You look familiar."

Passing mutual inspection. :)

Gnawing on orange and cucumber was a fun way to feel grown up. The cucumber was actually amazingly popular.

"Hi, Mom. Um, this is a fun toy, but I really don't know what to do with it."

"Oh, I see."

Chilling and visiting.

A great pianist at the ripe old age of 6 1/2 months.

Playing on the floor.

Grandma is singing "Little Brown Jug," a song her father sang to little kids while bouncing them on his leg. She says those are the songs of grandpas, while grandmas sing "Jesus Loves Me."

Grandpa holding his great-grandson. Caleb is actually the second and the third great-grandchild.

A nice enough day for grilling out.

. . . and napping.

Rocking away.

And finally, in unrelated news, I found the word "distance." Not all that impressive, you say? You're right. Even with the longest word on this turn I got the fewest points. But still -- "distance" -- that's pretty cool.