Squidbits
The Squid is eight months old now, for those of you playing along at home, and so much has changed this month it's almost shocking. It's been a real developmental Great Leap Forward, without, you know, an associated cultural revolution, purges of the intelligentsia, or ill-advised backyard steel mills. There's more of everything we had before - more babble, more rolling, more jumping up and down, etc. But there are several new-new things as well.
He has fangs - two of them, and sharp little suckers they are, too. Lower front teeth, like a wee orc or something. The "no biting" training part of breastfeeding is suddenly much more urgent. Much. Ow. I didn't particularly notice teething fussiness as markedly separate from other fussiness, and he still doesn't sleep through the night regularly (one wakeup, on average, sometimes two) so there weren't wild sleep fluctuations either - unless the weirdness I was ascribing to vacation was actually explicable by teeth. Whatever, he has them now. Rarrr! Drooling continues apace, so I imagine a few more will sprout in short order. I just read the piece in the National Geographic about the Dikika child, and they had a photo that shows where adult teeth start out before they migrate up - they're waaay down in the jaw. Wow. He'll be teething forever, I guess.
He's finally reached the tipping point of the Paul Bunyan fallacy, too. The legend goes that Paul Bunyan got as strong as he was by lifting Babe, his great blue ox, every day as he grew, and as the ox grew larger, Paul grew stronger. Well. The Squid is now officially larger than I am stronger, and getting more so daily. Ooof. Toting him around all the time is a real workout - and I am toting him around a lot, as separation anxiety has kicked in, and Only Mama Will Do much of the time. While I suppose this ought to be gratifying, as a symbol of my centrality and desirability in his life, in practice it feels like every time he sees me he bursts into tears. The misery can be stopped more or less instantly by picking the wee monster up, but that gets exhausting - see above re: Paul Bunyan fallacy.
My friend A snapped this in a grumpy squidmoment - she says he's saying "It sucks out here! Lemme back in!"
He can sit up on his own almost all the time now - in another week or so I think I'll be comfortable leaving him without soft padding behind him in case he whonks over. This is excellent, as it makes him much more portable in places like the bathroom or the bedroom, where there are no baby seats or other containers but one has to put the baby down occasionally nonetheless. His grip is much more directed and sure, and he pursues Desirable Objects (hair, earrings, cell phones, etc.) with determination and focus. No longer will he play with the toys he is given - now he wants our toys, and I feel that my interaction with him is devolving rapidly into the pre-toddler litany of "not for babies...not for babies...not for babies..." which I hear eventually shortens to "no," and then to "No!" and then to "NO!!" and then to a long hopeless wail of "Noooooooooo!" with fists shaken in impotent frustration at an unhearing sky.
Everything still goes into the drooling maw once captured, natch, but the capturing process has accelerated mightily! He also can hold solid food (apple slices, carrot sticks, pretzels, and - most messily - fruit leather) while he gums it - he can't yet break off pieces, but I'm sure that too is just a matter of time. Thus far, any solid food that is not mush has been spit out with accompanying yukface, but he's a good eater. It will all go down the hatch eventually/soon.
This was a fun and exhausting month for parenting. Himself was gone for eight days in Germany, I drove to LA for four with the Squid, we flew to Hawaii for six, there was a wedding and a retirement party and I had a few people over and my Grammy came to visit and I applied for more jobs (and got a phone call for my dream job, so cross your fingers that they get the grant and want me on the team) and worked and generally flailed through my very full days.
Traveling with the Squid is not as easy as it was when he was just a little lump of sleep and howl. Now he is alert, and he is interested, and he wants to stay up and party if there is party to be had. His job as a squidlet is to see and taste and observe and explore new things and have new experiences. Therefore, vacation days for baby are like crazy days at work for me - he's got so much to do! He can't possibly sleep, and he forgets to eat, and...you can see where this is going, can't you? Getting him down for naps was a fight almost every day we traveled (on the way to Hawaii he slept a grand total of maybe 2 hours between 4:30 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. California time) and his nighttime sleep didn't expand to take up the slack, either. He ate about half of what he normally eats at home - too distracted! - and fought bedtime like a mad thing almost every night, requiring a dark, quiet room to himself or a long car ride to crash at all. Sleep on airplanes was just wishful parental thinking; he dozed a bit once or twice, but the slightest movement or noise had those eyes popping wide open again.
But it was fun to see him discover grass, and sand, and pigeons, and the ocean, and to go places with him and meet New Scary People (some of whom he met and liked just fine a few months ago, before facial recognition and separation anxiety kicked in, but he was having none of them this time around.) He met dogs that were not our dogs, and his first cats, and got bitten by my Uncle F's spoiled teenage parrot when they both wanted the same toy - luckily, it didn't break skin, but we had some howling. I got some good time in with friends chatting in between diapers and feedings and entertaining the baby, and I think I'm almost caught back up on my sleep, too, now that we've been home from Hawaii for almost a week. But I was seriously wrung out for a while there, and as my last post shows, that puts a major dent in my coping ability.
Still, difficulty won't stop us from continuing to do stuff. The Squid and I went to a pumpkin carving event yesterday at friend C's, and it seems more important than ever to so things like that - meet new people, get out of the house, socialize. He has an easier time of it at home, it's true, but eventually it makes me nutso staying in and doing the same thing over and over, and he needs new stimulation and experiences at this age too. No matter how many new toys he acquires at home (latest monstrosity: a primary-colored plastic-and-nylon doorway bungee seat, for jumping about) there's nothing quite like getting out in the world and doing new things to expand wee horizons.
Besides, at home he's started to orient toward the television, and so my previous entertainment (the Squid is awesome, but I don't find having him jump up and down on my lap and suck on my fingers as overwhelmingly mentally engaging as he does) is soon to be out. I'd rather he didn't watch any television at all until he is two, but I know they let him at daycare. I cringe, but since he loves them and they love him (they miss him when he goes on vacation!) I wouldn't dream of moving him. In any case, we now need to find things to do that don't involve the TV in the evenings, at least before his bedtime.
Actually, though, this is one area where media fandom has really taught me a lot. I used to be a real book snob, of the "my child will never watch television, idiot box, yadda yadda, reading is so much better" absolutist bent - it's how I was raised, and I love the books and radio programmes and music that were part of my childhood instead. And I do still think it's very possible to watch TV passively, and that TV advertising is evil (no ads in books!), and that a lot of programming is crap (Sturgeon's law, magnified rather than ameliorated by the marketplace).
But television is a text, and so it's perfectly possible (as with films or books or comics or anything else) to interpret it actively and creatively, to use it as a stepping stone for exploration. I see media fans do it every day, and it's exciting stuff. Why not help our kids to "read" TV the way we help them to read books? Early studies of Sesame Street showed that merely watching the show itself did not correlate to any significant learning gains at all. A minor positive effect, however, appeared when children watched with an adult in the room - just in the room, not doing anything. I bet if that adult had been reinforcing the material through direct interaction, you'd suddenly see serious gains, though you'd need a control group of adults doing identical verbal interaction without the television, which would be hard to create. But I digress. All I mean to say is, when he's a little older, maybe we'll watch a little kid-appropriate TV together, and I'll help him "read" it the way I would a book. "Do you see the ducky? What's he doing? Is he talking to the cow? That's right! Why is he doing that?"
In a few days I will be off to a professional conference (hey, if I go to a professional conference at which I am not presenting, while job hunting, what's the suggested attire? Can I get away with nice pants, a casual nice sweater/leather jacket, and a dressy long-sleeve t-shirt? Or do I need heels and a button-down/twinset, or - god forbid - a suit? Anyone have advice? It will be chilly and likely rainy, and I have still not decided if I will get a rental car -probably, I'm lazy like that.) Himself and the Squid are going to solo for five whole days, and I will miss them horribly and also try very hard to get a ton of sleep and take care of myself instead of running around nonstop seeing friends, which is the temptation of all Portland visits. I'm planning to get a hotel for the last two nights, and go to ground relatively early, and even remember to stay hydrated and everything. With luck and care, this should be a trip that recharges rather than depletes me, and hopefully also one that helps with my job search. A healthy mama who likes her work makes a happy, playful mama at home, so I'm doing my best to move forward on those fronts, even if it means doing a little less in other areas.
And then, on to the holidays. I mean, sure, Halloween is tomorrow night, but I can't find his pumpkin hat, and he's too little to remember it anyway - we're just going to stay home and probably put the candy in a bowl on the porch after he goes to bed so that nobody rings the doorbell and wakes him up. But for Thanksgiving, we're going to Santa Cruz, for the crazy feast our dear friends T & MK put on, and then for Christmas we'll have our very own tree (my first!) and baking and carols and present wrapping. I love this time of year, and the grey tinge to the sky and the crisp chill in the air only serve to make me anticipate warm drinks and cards from friends and the smell of pine trees all the more. I can't wait to share it all with him.
He has fangs - two of them, and sharp little suckers they are, too. Lower front teeth, like a wee orc or something. The "no biting" training part of breastfeeding is suddenly much more urgent. Much. Ow. I didn't particularly notice teething fussiness as markedly separate from other fussiness, and he still doesn't sleep through the night regularly (one wakeup, on average, sometimes two) so there weren't wild sleep fluctuations either - unless the weirdness I was ascribing to vacation was actually explicable by teeth. Whatever, he has them now. Rarrr! Drooling continues apace, so I imagine a few more will sprout in short order. I just read the piece in the National Geographic about the Dikika child, and they had a photo that shows where adult teeth start out before they migrate up - they're waaay down in the jaw. Wow. He'll be teething forever, I guess.
He's finally reached the tipping point of the Paul Bunyan fallacy, too. The legend goes that Paul Bunyan got as strong as he was by lifting Babe, his great blue ox, every day as he grew, and as the ox grew larger, Paul grew stronger. Well. The Squid is now officially larger than I am stronger, and getting more so daily. Ooof. Toting him around all the time is a real workout - and I am toting him around a lot, as separation anxiety has kicked in, and Only Mama Will Do much of the time. While I suppose this ought to be gratifying, as a symbol of my centrality and desirability in his life, in practice it feels like every time he sees me he bursts into tears. The misery can be stopped more or less instantly by picking the wee monster up, but that gets exhausting - see above re: Paul Bunyan fallacy.
My friend A snapped this in a grumpy squidmoment - she says he's saying "It sucks out here! Lemme back in!"
He can sit up on his own almost all the time now - in another week or so I think I'll be comfortable leaving him without soft padding behind him in case he whonks over. This is excellent, as it makes him much more portable in places like the bathroom or the bedroom, where there are no baby seats or other containers but one has to put the baby down occasionally nonetheless. His grip is much more directed and sure, and he pursues Desirable Objects (hair, earrings, cell phones, etc.) with determination and focus. No longer will he play with the toys he is given - now he wants our toys, and I feel that my interaction with him is devolving rapidly into the pre-toddler litany of "not for babies...not for babies...not for babies..." which I hear eventually shortens to "no," and then to "No!" and then to "NO!!" and then to a long hopeless wail of "Noooooooooo!" with fists shaken in impotent frustration at an unhearing sky.
Everything still goes into the drooling maw once captured, natch, but the capturing process has accelerated mightily! He also can hold solid food (apple slices, carrot sticks, pretzels, and - most messily - fruit leather) while he gums it - he can't yet break off pieces, but I'm sure that too is just a matter of time. Thus far, any solid food that is not mush has been spit out with accompanying yukface, but he's a good eater. It will all go down the hatch eventually/soon.
This was a fun and exhausting month for parenting. Himself was gone for eight days in Germany, I drove to LA for four with the Squid, we flew to Hawaii for six, there was a wedding and a retirement party and I had a few people over and my Grammy came to visit and I applied for more jobs (and got a phone call for my dream job, so cross your fingers that they get the grant and want me on the team) and worked and generally flailed through my very full days.
Traveling with the Squid is not as easy as it was when he was just a little lump of sleep and howl. Now he is alert, and he is interested, and he wants to stay up and party if there is party to be had. His job as a squidlet is to see and taste and observe and explore new things and have new experiences. Therefore, vacation days for baby are like crazy days at work for me - he's got so much to do! He can't possibly sleep, and he forgets to eat, and...you can see where this is going, can't you? Getting him down for naps was a fight almost every day we traveled (on the way to Hawaii he slept a grand total of maybe 2 hours between 4:30 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. California time) and his nighttime sleep didn't expand to take up the slack, either. He ate about half of what he normally eats at home - too distracted! - and fought bedtime like a mad thing almost every night, requiring a dark, quiet room to himself or a long car ride to crash at all. Sleep on airplanes was just wishful parental thinking; he dozed a bit once or twice, but the slightest movement or noise had those eyes popping wide open again.
But it was fun to see him discover grass, and sand, and pigeons, and the ocean, and to go places with him and meet New Scary People (some of whom he met and liked just fine a few months ago, before facial recognition and separation anxiety kicked in, but he was having none of them this time around.) He met dogs that were not our dogs, and his first cats, and got bitten by my Uncle F's spoiled teenage parrot when they both wanted the same toy - luckily, it didn't break skin, but we had some howling. I got some good time in with friends chatting in between diapers and feedings and entertaining the baby, and I think I'm almost caught back up on my sleep, too, now that we've been home from Hawaii for almost a week. But I was seriously wrung out for a while there, and as my last post shows, that puts a major dent in my coping ability.
Still, difficulty won't stop us from continuing to do stuff. The Squid and I went to a pumpkin carving event yesterday at friend C's, and it seems more important than ever to so things like that - meet new people, get out of the house, socialize. He has an easier time of it at home, it's true, but eventually it makes me nutso staying in and doing the same thing over and over, and he needs new stimulation and experiences at this age too. No matter how many new toys he acquires at home (latest monstrosity: a primary-colored plastic-and-nylon doorway bungee seat, for jumping about) there's nothing quite like getting out in the world and doing new things to expand wee horizons.
Besides, at home he's started to orient toward the television, and so my previous entertainment (the Squid is awesome, but I don't find having him jump up and down on my lap and suck on my fingers as overwhelmingly mentally engaging as he does) is soon to be out. I'd rather he didn't watch any television at all until he is two, but I know they let him at daycare. I cringe, but since he loves them and they love him (they miss him when he goes on vacation!) I wouldn't dream of moving him. In any case, we now need to find things to do that don't involve the TV in the evenings, at least before his bedtime.
Actually, though, this is one area where media fandom has really taught me a lot. I used to be a real book snob, of the "my child will never watch television, idiot box, yadda yadda, reading is so much better" absolutist bent - it's how I was raised, and I love the books and radio programmes and music that were part of my childhood instead. And I do still think it's very possible to watch TV passively, and that TV advertising is evil (no ads in books!), and that a lot of programming is crap (Sturgeon's law, magnified rather than ameliorated by the marketplace).
But television is a text, and so it's perfectly possible (as with films or books or comics or anything else) to interpret it actively and creatively, to use it as a stepping stone for exploration. I see media fans do it every day, and it's exciting stuff. Why not help our kids to "read" TV the way we help them to read books? Early studies of Sesame Street showed that merely watching the show itself did not correlate to any significant learning gains at all. A minor positive effect, however, appeared when children watched with an adult in the room - just in the room, not doing anything. I bet if that adult had been reinforcing the material through direct interaction, you'd suddenly see serious gains, though you'd need a control group of adults doing identical verbal interaction without the television, which would be hard to create. But I digress. All I mean to say is, when he's a little older, maybe we'll watch a little kid-appropriate TV together, and I'll help him "read" it the way I would a book. "Do you see the ducky? What's he doing? Is he talking to the cow? That's right! Why is he doing that?"
In a few days I will be off to a professional conference (hey, if I go to a professional conference at which I am not presenting, while job hunting, what's the suggested attire? Can I get away with nice pants, a casual nice sweater/leather jacket, and a dressy long-sleeve t-shirt? Or do I need heels and a button-down/twinset, or - god forbid - a suit? Anyone have advice? It will be chilly and likely rainy, and I have still not decided if I will get a rental car -probably, I'm lazy like that.) Himself and the Squid are going to solo for five whole days, and I will miss them horribly and also try very hard to get a ton of sleep and take care of myself instead of running around nonstop seeing friends, which is the temptation of all Portland visits. I'm planning to get a hotel for the last two nights, and go to ground relatively early, and even remember to stay hydrated and everything. With luck and care, this should be a trip that recharges rather than depletes me, and hopefully also one that helps with my job search. A healthy mama who likes her work makes a happy, playful mama at home, so I'm doing my best to move forward on those fronts, even if it means doing a little less in other areas.
And then, on to the holidays. I mean, sure, Halloween is tomorrow night, but I can't find his pumpkin hat, and he's too little to remember it anyway - we're just going to stay home and probably put the candy in a bowl on the porch after he goes to bed so that nobody rings the doorbell and wakes him up. But for Thanksgiving, we're going to Santa Cruz, for the crazy feast our dear friends T & MK put on, and then for Christmas we'll have our very own tree (my first!) and baking and carols and present wrapping. I love this time of year, and the grey tinge to the sky and the crisp chill in the air only serve to make me anticipate warm drinks and cards from friends and the smell of pine trees all the more. I can't wait to share it all with him.
posted by The Stute Fish at 19:47
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