Encouragement From a Stranger

Lately, I've been struggling with anxiety over my children and feeling burnt out about mom stuff. I won't delve into it, but that's the background to my little story...

Today I hopped in the car with the boys to run to Target and since it was lunchtime when I was finished, I decided to take them to Panera for lunch. Now, the last time I went to Panera, I regretted it; it probably would have been better had it not been 11:30am on a Saturday near Christmas. Yeah...anyway...today was much better. I ordered, Ethan stayed near me, we found an available booth, I put Ethan in the booth while I got a high chair for Noah, put the placemats on the table, put the bibs on the boys, left them alone to pick up the food, and started feeding them all with no problems. I was slightly worried about what people were thinking when I walked away from the booth to get the food, but really, what was I going to do? They were both eating wonderfully and had such happy attitudes that I was able to eat and it was quite pleasant.

Then, towards the end of the meal, a random woman stopped by the table and said this gem: "I just wanted to stop and tell you what a beautiful family you have. I was so impressed by how you managed them and they are behaving so well. You are a good mom." I thanked her and then spent the rest of lunch trying not to cry. How did she know I needed to hear that so badly? I'm tearing up now just thinking about it. Sigh...motherhood is one of those jobs with such untangible results sometimes that you never know if you are doing ok or not. And when you are a firstborn perfectionist who fears making a wrong decision or screwing up, it's even worse. In fact, yesterday, my hairdresser (who goes to my church) told me that Mom Guilt is just a spiritual attack and I need to not let those thoughts into my head. It's encouraging as well to hear it from your husband or your mom or your mother-in-law, but when a stranger stops and says something so specific like that, it is meaningful in a different way. I think I'll remember that for a while.

Mealtimes With This One-Year Old

Noah Joseph has turned into a food maniac.

He must examine the food carefully. "Hmmm...yes, a pea. That is what I want."

He has recently learned to drink from a cup without handles and tip it up to get more out.
When finished with said cup, it must, I repeat, MUST, be laying down on it's side. If Mama dares to stand it up, he will stop eating to lay it down.
And then, the screaming commences: (Translation follows) "PEAS!!!!!!!! MORE PEAS!!!!!! NOT HAM!!!!! PEEEAAAASSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

At the end of the meal, while laughing at the demonstration of his personality, Mama declares her intention of teaching this child sign language, specifically "more" and "please". The screaming must stop. Must....stop.

He Speaks!

For the non-Facebookers among my blog readers:

Dave left to go to Lowe's tonight with Ethan and as he walked out the front door, Noah crawled after him and pulled himself up on the closed door. I asked him if he wanted to go out, and he looked at me for a second and then clearly said, "Out". And then kept saying it as he crawled around the living room. He's not walking yet, but we've got a word! And at 11 1/2 months, he beats Ethan's first word, which appeared at 14 months.

Language Development

Having majored in a foreign language in college, I studied language acquisition in the process. I find the process fascinating. For instance, all children progress from a one-word stage to a two-word stage to telegraphic speech, meaning they speak in short sentences consisting primarily of nouns and verbs only. Children tend to learn the "-ing" ("He going") form of a verb first, followed by the "-s" ("He goes") ending. They learn present tense way before they learn past tense or future tense (mainly because of the time concept involved). Children learn the plural "s", then the possessive "s" then the third person singular "s" verb tense. When learning to make sentences negative, they generally start by just adding "no" or "not" to the beginning of sentences and then start using "can't" and "don't" etc, correctly. When acquiring vocabulary, they tend to overgeneralize words, such as using "bee" to refer to all insects.

Now that Ethan is in this 2 year old "language explosion" stage, it's so interesting to hear him do all these things. For example, Ethan's first word was "home", followed by "mess" and "nice". I just realized that we've made it into the telegraphic speech stage; I realized this when he told me after dinner, "Noah hide tent too", meaning that he wanted Noah to come down into the basement and play in their tent. All insects used to be "bees" but now they are "butterflies". All airplanes are "gan-pas" because Grandpa Spence is a pilot. All fruit is called an "apple". Until recently, all babies had either the name "Noah" or "Lyla" (Lyla Richardson). He started saying plurals last week, and then a few days ago, I noticed him saying "Noah's head", "Mama's head" (possessives). As far as negatives goes, today we were walking outside and he was pointing at all the trash that some lazy people have thrown into the bushes at the end of the street. I was telling him that it was trash, trash outside isn't good, we only put trash in the trash can, etc. Well, for the next 10 minutes (literally), all he said was (while shaking his head back and forth), "Trash. Isssnn good. Noooo. Trash outside. Isssnnn good. Oh no." And there. I've done my civic duty for today. One less litterer in the world.

My Little Helpers

I have two little boys who have liked helping me around the house lately.

They help me make dinner.

They help me vacuum.

Ok, so this isn't exactly helping...
And Ethan is now throughly worn out by all that helping.

Programmed Panic

January 7th: 4:12 am

The silence of the night is broken by a crying child. I tap Dave to wake him up, "Dave!" He says, "I hear him". We both jump out of bed; I throw on a bathrobe, he throws on a pair of sweatpants. We fly into Ethan's room, where we see him hanging over the side of his crib, crying like something terrible has happened. I stand next to him with my arm around his back, thinking he's throwing up over the side of the crib. Dave tosses the blankets and stuffed animals around to find the vomit. Ethan keeps saying, "Down. Down" through his tears, so Dave starts looking at the floor and scratches at a dark spot on the carpet that turns out to be...a dark spot on the carpet. We turn on the light, thinking the vomit has got to be somewhere. But, no. There is no vomit. Nothing is wrong with him. This is his typical 4:00am freakout that occurs every month or so. Sigh of relief...

I still suspect he may have an unhealed ear infection so I give him some more Tylenol and Dave sits with him to calm him down while I sneak into Noah's room to make sure he's ok. There's got to be vomit somewhere, right? He's snug as a bug, curled up in the corner of his crib with his butt in the air and his hands tucked underneath him. No vomit. Amazing. So I crawl back into bed and wait for Dave to come back to bed.

Dave comes back to bed and we laugh at our panic that crying = vomiting child. We both lay there wide awake for a while (me composing this blog entry) until we fall asleep and wake up again when Noah wakes up starving at 7:30.

Starving children are good. All is well in the Spence household. I think.

Little Sicko Boy

Oh my little baby...he's been sick since Friday. Last night, after 46 hours of no vomiting (and Dave and I beginning to breathe sighs of relief), he vomited again. Big sigh of frustration....

The strategy today: no formula. I suspect that that's what's partly making this thing worse. The one day I didn't give him formula, he didn't throw up. Who knows? But he drank a bunch of Pedialyte and ate a dry waffle so that was good. And then he ate applesauce and a graham cracker at my inlaws for lunch too. He has also been pretty playful and talkative which is a good sign as well.

First thing this morning, I called and got an appointment with Dr. Schiavone. I was able to leave Ethan with my in-laws so I could take Noah alone. Thank goodness there is nothing seriously wrong with him. Dr. Schiavone said that babies his age take about 5 days to form the antibodies to fight the illness (and we're right at Day 5 today). He said he didn't appear to be too dehydrated and not to be concerned if he doesn't have as many wet diapers. His advice was to continue giving him the Pedialyte along with the typical mild foods - crackers, Cheerios, applesauce, bananas, pears, etc. He was fine with me staying off formula for a few days and then trying to give him smaller amounts to wean him back on. I'm not terribly concerned about the formula to be honest since I'll be weaning him off of it in a few weeks. He also confirmed my suspicion that Ethan and Noah were more susceptible to a stomach virus after having been on antibiotics a few weeks ago. I'll be amping up the probiotics as soon as Noah's stomach is back to normal.

It was also discovered that Noah has an ear infection in his left ear; he just had one in his right ear before Christmas too. Again, I would never have known he had an ear infection. It's interesting because ear infections can make you vomit. He appears to be taking after Dave in this regard with lots of ear infections, although I seem to remember my mom saying that I got them frequently too.

So now we're on another antibiotic, this one being a type that is easier on the stomach. I have another appointment on Friday (which was scheduled 3 weeks ago) to have Ethan's ear re-checked so if I'm still having issues or questions, that will be a relief before I go up to Pennsylvania for my sister's baby shower and leave the boys with a babysitter.

It's been interesting to hear so many testimonials from people who have survived this type of thing. It makes me know I too will survive. I have heard of people crawling around on all fours trying to care for their baby, and of a certain child of my pediatrician (I shall name no names...) vomiting and getting diarrhea simultaneously in the car in traffic in the summer. And many people have reassured me that the stomach flu does not frequently affect an entire family at once, so maybe that's my lifetime experience? Here's to hoping!

New Years Weekend From Hell

Oh, what a miserable, miserable weekend...

New Year's Eve started out in an awesome way for Dave and I. We had rented a movie and planned to play games all night just the two of us after the kids went to bed. We played a few rounds of our new game (introduced to us by my brother-in-law) - Blokus - and started to play Scrabble but were just not feeling that one. Or, at least, I wasn't, because I was losing and the board was not buildable (?) We drank a little champagne, watched the ball drop, called our friends to say "Happy New Year" and then I headed up to bed. And that's when the misery began...

Noah was laying in a pool of vomit.

I'll spare you the gory details, but an hour later, the disease hit Dave. The disease hit Dave every 30 minutes until 8:30 am. I got up with the boys, went and got the stomach flu staples - Gatorade, ginger ale, saltines,etc, but wasn't feeling all that great. Around 4:30, the disease hit me. At 5:00, Noah had another episode. Ethan was still healthy at this point, and being so sweet. He would run around the house saying, "Mama sick. Noah sick" and then come over and lay his head on me and say, "Awwww". My heart just broke looking at him knowing he was probably going to be the next one hit. I went to bed at 8:30, and woke up to help Dave as the disease hit Ethan around 1am. So hard...we were both feeling weak and nauseous but had to take care of the kids at the same time. One of these things that you don't fully realize you are signing up for when you get pregnant. You sort of vaguely think, "Oh yeah, my kids will get sick", but you just have no idea how horrible it will be until it happens. Thankfully, it does not go on forever although the thought of this happening again is something I will dread.

We both felt much better the next morning, as did Ethan. Noah, however, was another story. He was clearly more irritable and cranky and didn't really eat much. I just thought it was an appetite thing, or just that feeling you get recovering from the stomach flu, sort of weak and achy. I thought it would be over after he drank some pedialyte and ate some mild foods. Not so. He had another episode last night at around 11pm. UGH!!!! I've washed every crib sheet and every pair of pajamas we own at least once. I guess I'm thankful that I'm caught up on my laundry??

Today, Noah has been more miserable than I have ever seen him. He has slept most of the day and laid in Dave and I's arms for the rest of the time he's been awake. It has been all I can do to try to get him to drink fluids. I've tried pedialyte, water, chicken broth and he just pushes the cup away most of the time. He went to bed at 6:45. If he has another episode tonight, I'll calling the pediatrician because this is just going on much longer than seems usual for such a small baby. I'm slightly worried about his fluid intake, but I've been paying attention to his diapers and trying my hardest. I can't force him to drink anything so I don't know what else to do. Not as much food today - just a few Cheerios, parts of a cracker and a little broth. Maybe that will help his stomach settle enough to get over this bug? I hate this feeling of helplessness and not knowing what to do.

The good thing is that Dave and I are so thankful for how well we have worked together and taken care of each other. Dave feels like it has been one of the best times we have had together as a family, and I have to say that I love him more because of this weekend. I really appreciate my mother telling me it's ok to cry and not handle it perfectly. I appreciate my mother-in-law for all her suggestions (all of which I've tried) and for the chicken soup she drove specifically to Costco to get for us. I appreciate my friend Rachel driving to our house in the freezing cold to bring us pedialyte in the thick of the illness. So, thanks everyone. I love my friends and family.

Our Christmas - Part Two

Christmas Day

So, Noah had his first Christmas. It's funny how it's sort of a special thing, with lots of gimmicky ornaments and outfits, and yet the kid could care less. I will admit that I caved and bought Noah his own (not a hand-me-down) "My First Christmas" oneside. And hey! He didn't fall prey to the Second Child Curse of not getting Baby's First Christmas ornaments or pictures taken of him. First Christmas gifts consisted of a bath toy, a monkey book and a Playskool Busy Ball Popper; the last toy makes me feel like I've crossed over into the dark side of toys and part of me loves that the boys both love it.

Ethan was actually into opening gifts this year, although he did want to play with each and every one as soon as it was open. His main gift was a Matchbox car garage, since he is obsessed with cars (it's his first and last word in the morning) and he drives his cars on every available surface. As soon as he saw the box, he immediately got up, ran into the kitchen, grabbed his basket of cars and came running back. He just knew he was going to need them. He even started playing with it before Dave had a single piece of it assembled.

After we had finished opening presents, cleaning up and taking showers, we packed up and headed up to Pennsylvania to be with my family. First stop was my grandparents' house for dinner and more opening of presents. Noah got a stuffed bear from Nana and Papa.

Ethan did get a train set, puzzles, a Playdough set, cars, DVDs and another book, but the big hit of the night was the bows (well, and the cars, of course).

The rest of the weekend we spent at my parents house with pretty much my whole family at one point or another, including my unborn niece or nephew (8 more weeks!). The boys absolutely love their Nana and Papa; Ethan "talks" to Nana on his play phone all the time and asks me about whether Papa is coming every couple of days. Can you tell that Noah loves his Papa?