Art

Lily walks up to me holding a crayon.

Lily: "I need a paper towel. For the wall. For the crayon."

Me: (slightly alarmed) "Did you color on the wall?"

Lily: "I make a circle. On the wall."

Me: "Lily, you never color on the wall! Only on paper."

Lily: "It's for the paper. It's a circle."

Me: "Where did you draw on the wall? Can you show me?"

Lily: "Okay!"

She shows me her art right next to the front door, highlighting its circle-ness. I explain again that she is not to use crayon on the walls.

Lily: "Only paper! I make a sun, I make a circle on the paper."

It seems my house is not safe. Good thing the walls are in bad shape anyway and are slated for new paint sometime this year. And I suppose I can be glad she originally came to find me in order to clean up her mess.

Kids. Amirite?

Beauty and the Beast

Lily is now two and her capacity for pretend play has exploded. This coincides with her discovery of the awesomeness of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which she requests nearly every day, often multiple times.

Inspired by this movie, her playtime has been heartbreakingly adorable lately.

1. She found a small basket and a hardcover book in the basement. After triumphantly declaring it's "like Beauty and the Beast!" (think Belle in the first song), she proceeded to dance around and sing with her basket and book. She now does this several times per day.

2. She's been heard to mournfully declare, "I need to help my father! He's sick. He's all alone!"

3. A few days ago we were eating soup for lunch. She started to chuckle and asked, "Can you do it?" "Do what?" "Like Beauty and the Beast!" When I realized she wanted me to eat faux-messily like the Beast and I obliged, I think I made her day.

I don't exactly love seeing here glued to a tv, but there are far worse and more annoying shows she could be watching, so I'm not complaining!

My Kid Can Read 2

This is a follow-up to the previous post: Lily has a travel Aquadoodle. That was the original toy we used to show Lily what her name looks like. Tonight she made it clear that it is known not as "Aquadoodle" but as "L! Lily!"

That is all.

My Kid Can Read

No, she can't read. But she does now recognize her own name, which I think is pretty awesome.

It started as just a habit that both Erich and I have. If Lily happens to have a crayon and paper (not very often yet as she doesn't know how not to make a mess), we will write out her name and say it. "L-I-L-Y. Lily!"

It didn't take too many repetitions before she approximated the same actions. "L! L! Lily!" she says with perfect little Ls as she swipes the pencil or crayon in vertical lines.

She has a book called The Parable of the Lily. Tonight, during her usual refusal-to-sleep routine (still ongoing, actually), I decided to test her. I pointed to her name in the title and asked her what is says. "L. I. Lily."

At least she's smartish. And pretty cute. :)

New Year's Survey

Cuz it's fun, that's why!

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?
Had a baby!

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I wanted to get in shape for real, and I did, sort of. Right around September, I had some real muscles. Then I stopped exercising for many reasons and lost even more weight and have decided that I'm doing well with eating when I'm hungry, stopping when I'm full, and chasing a toddler.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
MEEEEE! Also, my SIL, Erin!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My grandmother.

5. What countries did you visit?
I don't recall that we went anywhere more exotic than Indiana. Wow.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A home free from dust? I really don't have a big wish list. We're having affordable home improvements done, which was my wish last year. We are blessed.

7. What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory?
January 8th, the best and worst.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Kept my kid alive. I'm proud that I've been able to breastfeed her whole life and have been saving money by cloth diapering.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I suffered from good patient syndrome at the end of my pregnancy which blah blah blah blah blah.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
One sinus infection. Nothing horrible.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Anything that kept my family fed, clothed and clean in a practical way. So many baby items are great and indispensible, so I couldn't pick just one.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Erich for his excellent support. I just love that guy.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
People who criticize other people's parenting choices for stupid reasons. I hate Mommy Wars, and I hate getting drawn into them even more.

14. Where did most of your money go?
The house and the kid.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Having a baby. Erich's days off. Galena weekend. Christmastime.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
Anything performed by the cast of Glee.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier
ii. thinner or fatter? THINNER!!! THINNER THINNER THINNER!
iii. richer or poorer? same

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Sleep.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Procrastination. That has always been true. (Keeping the exact same answer from last year.)

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Christmas Eve: Erich played trumpet for 7:15pm church, Lily refused to stay asleep and so hung out with my dad while the rest of us went to 11pm church with me playing organ and Erich and I sang in choir.
Christmas Day: Played organ and sang for 9am church, hung out with parents the rest of the day. Lily opened her "Santa" presents and we watched movies.
Second Day of Christmas: Big party with my side of the family after playing organ for three services. Lots of food, presents, and fun.
Third-Eigth Days of Christmas: Visiting Keller side in IN. It was at times relaxing and chaotic but always nice.

22. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Yeah, I really love that little girl who came into my life.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Lost was great. We still like Community, 30Rock, Office, Outsourced has been fun. I have a big new soft spot for Glee.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
The obstetrics establishment.

26. What was the best book you read?
The Time-Traveller's Wife. So good!

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Mostly musical shows on TV, like Glee and The Sing-Off.

28. What did you want and get?
New flooring on the main floor. I was so glad the carpet was gone, it took me a while to be thrilled that the hardwood looks good.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Harry Potter #7, Part 1. One of the only movies I saw in the theater.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Erich and I went on a rare date to a Spanish restaurant. I turned 27.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I have no idea.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
My personal fashion concepts are always so practical. In the past I've attempted to hide the fat and then look as good as possible while pregnant. This year looking decent, hiding fat, and being able to nurse easily and modestly were the driving forces.

34. What kept you sane?
Usually my mom, who would provide and extra pair of arms to deal with a baby.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Maybe I've finally grown up or something, but I have almost no connection to celebrity pop culture these days, and I don't miss it.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Birth rights and breastfeeding rights. Feminist stuff, actually, minus the abortion stuff.

37. Who did you miss?
All the family and friends I don't get to see often enough.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Lily!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
One very important aspect of parenting can be boiled down to constant risk assessment.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your whole year:
Pick a lullaby, any lullaby.

Bizarre

I've had a lot of strange experiences in the ~49 weeks since my baby was born. Tonight is right up there!

Lily's bedtimes have been all over the place. In fact, it really makes me want to rethink how I spend my evenings so that I could always be there to help her get to bed at a decent time, but that's another post entirely. Anyway, our routine, such as it is, has been particularly out of whack recently.

Tonight she had what I could only call a very late nap, going to sleep around what would be a good bedtime, about 7:00pm. The only problem was we happened to be at my parents' house at the time. When she woke up a little bit, around 9:30, we bundled her up and took her home. She was groggy and cranky through the pj's and diaper change routine and then feasted on momma's milk before dozing off again.

Then she did the currently-typical "I'M ASLEEP BUT YOU CAN'T PUT ME DOWN OR I WILL SCREAM AND CRY" rigmarole. It's kind of like having a newborn again, only extra infuriating because I don't understand it at all. Multiple attempts to calm her down failed. She'd be floppy-asleep, but as soon as I'd start to lower her into her crib, she'd arch her back, flip over and start wailing. I found myself praying that if God would be so good as to bless us with more children, would He please also be so beneficent as to grant us a child who actually likes to sleep? Or at least doesn't fight it with every tiny ounce of her strength?

So, I gave up. Daddy's turn. He was ready for bed, so he tried calming her down to sleep in our bed. He tried going back to her room and rocking her. He tried everything before calling on me. We did the can't-fail, flank-the-baby-in-bed-and-let-her-touch-BOTH-of-our-hair routine that should do it. Nope, she'd calm down, act like she was asleep and then completely lose it if someone moved a muscle.

Exasperated, I offered her the breast one last time. She drank up, rolled over, eyes still closed, and then: was that a smile? Is this kid smiling in her sleep? And THEN:

"Pthbtp. Heh"

She was babbling. Happy babbling. She stuck out her tongue at Erich and then finally, dramatically, opened her eyes with a look of glee. Erich and I both did a double-take and then starting rolling around laughing. Lily joined in. I have no idea what happened. I still don't--but it was pretty darn funny!

I laughed and laughed until I nearly cried frustrated tears of exhaustion an hour later when she was doing the scream-cry thing again. I finally got her calmed down and, miraculously, in her crib. So I guess I'd better get ready for bed, slip into bed, and then be most of the way asleep in time for her to wake up again. Good night!

Resolution

I'm just tired of whining and complaining. I feel like I've been doing a lot of that lately.

Well. . .okay, I'm not done whining and complaining about everything I could possibly whine and complain about. But one thing is getting the boot from my plate of worries. I will, like a baby-toddler learning how to play fetch, grab it from the tray in front of me, rotate my torso to extend my arm outward, and drop that little sucker straight onto the floor. And I will calmly watch it go splat. Bonus points if a dog comes along to eat it up.*

I'm done worrying about this kid's sleep habits. No matter what I do or don't do, whether I feel in control or not, whether I'm subscribing to the ideas of some author/guru or relying on my instincts alone, this too shall pass, and I'm finally ready to embrace that. I'm going to stop stubbornly ignoring how strong are the implications of two new teeth, many new words and a cold all in one week when it comes to falling and staying asleep. It's just hard, and we suffer, but we survive and it's okay.

Call it an epiphany, call it a nice night out with good friends and good beer, call it a timely rush of oxytocin--I'm feeling a bit at peace right now, so I'm just going to roll with it.





*My parents' wonderful dog, the eight-year-old yellow lab Lucy, was recently treated to a Lily cast-off. But she's so obedient, so subservient, that she did not take the rejected food until one of her parents gave her permission. I don't want a dog (right now) because no dog can live up to Lucy.

Why Kids Need Dads:

Because I would not and could not do this with any regularity:

But I suspect it's really good for building character.

And a whole host of other things as well. Because this kid gets thrown around and inverted by her daddy, she's used to a little bit of roughness. She belly laughs. She bonds with her daddy.

A mother's gentle, loving touch is one thing, but nothing can replace a good daddy.

10 Months

The kid is 10 months old.

I've been posting more, so it seems repetitious to recount all the major things she's doing right now, but here's what I can think of:

• She understands a LOT more than she can communicate. It seems like she knows a lot of words.
• In that vein, she knows two signs, which are usually accompanied by spoken words: "milk" ("mee mee") and "diaper" ("die die. . . peh peh"). I think she has fun doing the diaper sign and will sign and say it even when she's totally dry.
• She's got a destructive streak. She'll pick up an object and slam it against something else and softly smirk. She also studies things very closely, often in a methodical way, like her engineer father.
• We may be coming out the other side of the tunnel, sleep-wise, but for the record, I never said this. No sleep jinxes allowed!
• Her smile has evolved again. When she's very excited or telling a joke, she crinkles up her whole face with a wide smile and usually a hip bounce as well.
• Speaking of smile, she's got some upper teeth coming in. They look really close to popping through and she's writhing in pain a lot, but I won't be surprised if it's another week or two. This child's teeth don't like her.
• Everything is for climbing on or crawling to. Bravery increases as she lets go of things while standing up more and more often.
• Once she discovered she can take bites with her lower teeth, she started liking solid food more. She likes a lot of things, especially apple and her old favorite, rice.
• Her hair, where I once cut it, is growing out again. And I mean OUT. It's pretty tough to tame. Her shortest little hairs on the back of her head are very curly.

Eight to ten months ago, caring for this baby was like having to do 200 simple arithmetic questions per day. Exhausting, but relatively simple. Now it's like having to do only 10 problems, only now they're Calculus. And I never TOOK Calculus.

To add a dash of another metaphor, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I used to long for the day of predictable naps, more sleep at night, and increased interaction. Now I kind of miss the days when I didn't have to chase a wild animal around the house and continually baby-proof my life.

I wouldn't trade these last ten months with this kid for anything. She is a complete joy (no matter what I might say in the more challenging moments)!

Trick or Treat

Halloween was Sunday dinner at my parents' house. We went for a brief walk and called it trick-or-treating.

Lily was a ladybug.

All three of us.

(I apologize for my appearance. I probably should keep my mouth shut and stop seeing things that no one else does, but I find it hard to believe that I'm that fat. The sweater and pants are both way too big, so let's blame the clothes. I keep meaning to shop for myself, and it keeps not happening.)

Alice! This kid is a champion smiler.

The three cousins. Alayna actually was trick-or-treating.

My cousin, Nathan, wife Anna, and baby Jacob were there! Jacob was the cutest pumpkin ever.

No Credit Taken

Erich and I are very much the parents of one child. Fortunately, we know it and are pretty self-conscious about it. As such, we take absolutely no credit for Lily's many wonderful traits. Conveniently, this frees us from taking credit for her many less-than-desirable traits.

Lily is what many would call a "good" baby. She only cries if she is physically hurt, she loves people, she plays with toys the way they're meant to be played with, and she generally has a very even temperament. Our mothers tell us that Erich and I were the same way as babies, so it's not very shocking that we have such an agreeable child.

Tonight, because Erich is out of town, I took my overtired baby to an election party because I needed a break. She was a complete doll. I could tell she was extremely tired: The staring eyes, the yawns, they give her away. Yet people expect a baby to turn fussy and become a terror when she's getting close to bedtime. So when they know she's super tired and THIS is what she's like when she's sleep deficient, people start laying on the compliments. I acknowledge my luck and move on.

Absolutely nothing I do as a mother makes her this way. And you know what? She challenges me. I struggle. The reason she was so overtired in the first place was that she only napped for one hour this morning and utterly refused an afternoon nap. She did act super tired for about three hours, but for whatever reason, she never would sleep. And I confess I lost my temper.

So no matter how "good" my baby is, I don't have the easiest time in the world. And that makes us normal! If I survive till she's two, she'll probably be quite terrible by then. And I will not be surprised. And I will not accept any blame!

Hair

Lily has a very interesting relationship with hair. Not the hair on her head, which is an exciting mess in itself, but hair on other people's heads.

She has always loved feeling different textures with her fingers, but I believe she finds hair hair to be the ultimate supreme texture. I know it's a thing with babies that they like silky textures and will stroke them to soothe themselves. Lily? Give her some grit and she's happy as a drug addict getting her fix. You can see it in the way her eyes slacken and her head drops as soon as she has her hair.

Having long hair is key. My hair comes just past my shoulders in the front and whenever I hold my sleepy baby close to nurse or rock her to sleep, her free hand goes straight for my neck area. She gropes around until she can find a handful, a strand or clump to clutch in her fist. With the ends toward her thumb, she presses her thumb against the fistful of hair as if she's clicking a button.

Besides the fact that I'm the only lactating human in the household, this is another reason I'm usually the only one who can help get Lily to sleep. Erich, for all his luxurious curls, does not have grabbable strands of hair which hang around his neck. And if I should happen to have my hair tied back on a given day? Well, that situation needs to be remedied quickly because this strong little kid's grasp can and will start pulling apart my 'do to get the precious combination of silky and gritty textures between her tiny fingertips.

Lily's need for hair is right up there with her need to suck. She will usually only hang onto a pacifier if she's going to sleep or is particularly tired. If we happen to be out when she's getting ready for naptime, she will absent-mindedly grab for hair. When hair is not available, she will press her thumb print rhythmically against the edge of a fingernail. If she doesn't have someone else's fingernail available, she will sweep her thumb against the fingers of the same hand.

And so we now understand one of Lily's idiosyncrasies. Just one of those things that make her unique. But! Would you have guessed that this manner of fidgeting is somehow genetic? Indeed! Her father has the exact same fidgeting mannerisms. He used to absent-mindedly scrape his thumb print against my fingernails until I made him stop because it felt creepy. He gravitates toward gently feeling textures, especially textiles, with his fingertips.

Isn't that weird? I mean, Lily's habit is mildly weird enough without the genetic component making it slightly weirder than mildly weird. That's JMVVHO (just my very, very humble opinion). The end!

ETA: Erich reminds me that his brother, Lily's youngest uncle had a hair fetish for years and years. He mainly liked to stroke it. Erich feels textures. Marry those two traits and you get Liy, feeling the texture of hair. Alles klar? Too bad, I'm really done now.

Addenda

1. I left one item off the nickname list: Chica Girl. Also, Erich prefers the spelling "Lilo-zeen," à la Strong Bad.

2. Tonight, we are not Cheap and Boring. We went to a Japanese steakhouse, didn't worry about prices, ate till we were only semi-uncomfortably full, had good beer, sashimi and maki, hibachi, and generally had a very nice time. And Lily even ate salad, stir-fried veggies and rice! Then Erich made a Meijer run and got Lily a Halloween costume on clearance. Yay!

3. I have to step it up for NaBloPoMo, as I'm not going to get this posted before midnight. I'm going to cheat so it looks like I did, though, and I won't feel bad about it NEETHER. (The beer was good, remember.)

4. Sleep is much better during the day now, but Lilla-Miss Teeny Tiny Loysel Toysel Chica Girl takes FOREVER to go to bed for the night. I don't like letting her cry, but I'd read/listen to any wisdom or advice anyone can offer on that one.

5. Just saw a commercial for an SNL special. WHAT IN THE WORLD HAPPENED TO CHERI OTERI'S FACE??????

It was horrifying. ...Happy Halloween?

Nicknames

Erich is a champion nicknamer. And by "champion" I mean he comes up with really weird nicknames that stick for whatever reason. We're odd.

For example, the many nicknames of Lily:

Lilz
Lilith
Liliana
Leusel Teusel
Kiddo Kid
Little Tiny
Lili-tiny
Lee-lee

And the latest... Lilosine. (Rhymes with "limosine.")

Odd, I tell you.

I Mean, We Love Sleep!

Two epiphanies today:

1. Erich was on a work call when Lily and I got up. She was being noisy and wiggly, so rather than try to wrestle her, I plopped her in the high chair and gave her some apple while I had my breakfast. She loved it! The girl is ready for more solids. It's time to sit her down and give her food at meal times. (Lately we've been doing that only at dinnertime and only when convenient.) Gotta sow the seeds for future routines!

2. Sleep regressions are good for hitting the reset button on my expectations. Not expecting any naps today (hey, aim low), I was so delighted when she actually went to sleep that I got BUSY and got some things accomplished around the house. Two hours later, I am only just now hearing little wakey sounds.

Hooray.

We H8 Sleep

This post is dedicated to Google and the Internet in general, which help me know that I'm not alone.

Lily is nine months old. But, like, she's nine months old. She's growing and changing by leaps and bounds every day; sometimes it seems like every hour. And for some reason with all these amazing physical and cognitive changes comes a real strain in her relationship with sleep.

Something similar happened at four months. She went from being happy when held or lying on the floor, just smiling and interacting with whoever was holding her, going to sleep when she was tired... to having her whole world open up. Even though it was a while yet before she started actually moving around, she started really noticing things across the room. She was starting the long process of teething. It seemed like lots of little changes and new things (laughing! grasping toys! etc!) all came together and combined to create a perfect storm of sleep-preventing nerve firings. She went from sleeping through the night to waking up 3-4 times or more. Naps were unpredictable at best. We were exhausted.

Everything settled down within a few weeks and the routine was pretty well set for several months.

Now it's all back. If before Lily's world opened up to the size of an average 12x12 room, it is now much larger still--like maybe the size of our whole sharp furniture-filled basement. She went from either sitting still or rolling to crawling and cruising within a week or so. She went from having fun being startled to actually playing peekaboo. (Granted, she doesn't usually successfully cover her eyes, but you can tell by the glint that she's "hiding".) Her body and mind are having trouble keeping up with all these leaps. I can almost see her mind whirring with new discoveries as she fights every last nap and bedtime. It's not her fault--and my knowing this saves her life sometimes, I think--it's just that her nervous system won't let her relax.

Realizing what she's actually going through does help in many ways, but the net result is the same: we're exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Will she ever go back to taking two naps totaling three hours? (I really liked that. I miss that.) Will she ever settle down and be nursed to sleep within 15 minutes again instead of 1.5 hours?

I know she won't be like this when she's 12 or even when she's 3 or 18 months. But...will it get better? Will THIS baby's, this particular, individual, unique baby's routine improve?

If so, for the love of all that's good, please tell me: WHEN???

"But--I'm too cute to be chucked out the window!"

Nine Months!

This is my 200th post! And it's long overdue. I meant to scribble something when Lily turned eight months, but then it never happened. Now she's been NINE months old for three days!

Major milestones lately! That would bear part of the blame for how little sleep we've gotten lately, but alas, our house has been struck with viruses galore.

Lily has her first full-blown cold. She's had the snifflies and the stuffies before and even had an ear infection at 2 months, but that was so long ago it feels like another life. She's been very congested, making it hard for her to eat and she's been quite fussy and not sleeping well AT ALL, to the extent that I feel like the mother of a newborn again. I did not sign up for this. Luckily, she seems to have turned a corner today and is getting back to her normal perky self. There are other culprits for the fuss, though...

Teeth! Tooth #1 finally emerged on Monday, September 27. Tooth #2 followed six days later. The fussiness ramped up a few days before each tooth, but general teething continues as the top ones make their way down and Lily chews on her molars. Honestly, I don't even know when molars show up, but I'm sure it's not soon. She's just THAT kind of teether.

Crawling! I was starting to wonder if she'd just skip it altogether since she was pretty good at rolling and loves standing and walking (supported). But no, in the past week, she's gone from getting to her hands and knees and swimming around to actually crawling across the floor. At the same time, she's developing some pretty good cruising skills, which means...

Bumps, bruises, and tears, oh my! My life is truly forever changed now. Because she can, she WILL crawl under the dining room table, pull her head up, lose her balance, and hit her head against a chair. She can and has gone from sitting on the changing table to (MOTHER OF THE YEAR ALERT) flipping onto the floor. She has bitten her lip with those shiny new teeth.

Lily's personality continues to emerge to the delight of all who meet her. In the matter of a few days, we watched her go from being surprised by "peekaboo"-type games to playing them herself. Separation anxiety is apparent, but I observe it only when Erich leaves the room. I don't think she cares as much when I leave. She's slightly reserved around strangers at first, but warms up quickly and interacts well unless she's particularly tired or hungry.

In the past couple of weeks, she's started pointing at everything, which is a stage I particularly love in babies. She loves to look at her board books, especially Dr. Seuss's ABC book. She points to the pictures, especially round things like donuts and the orange owl's eyes and then hooks her pointing finger to turn the page. She can entertain herself for a long time by sitting next to her basket full of small toys and emptying it little by little. Otherwise, small toys don't hold much interest and she'd rather have anything that's NOT a toy. We're now lucky if we can convince her to play with a battery-less remote when she's aware of the real one.

She says ma-ma-ma and da-da-da fairly reliably in reference to me and Erich, respectively, but she will almost never say them on command. She babbles up a storm, especially in the morning and when she gets up from a nap: "Ba ba BAH. Weh wwwehhhh. Mo muh mah mm muh." She loves listening to her voice in an echo-y room.

I gave Lily her first haircut last week. It was hard to contemplate at first, but I found myself increasingly annoyed at the tuft on the crown of her head. It had turned into a hugely long mess of wispiness while the rest of her hair grew normally, so I snipped it to match the length with no regrets.

She's in mostly 18 month clothing sizes, with some 12s she won't be able to wear much longer. She's definitely becoming longer and thinner, so the 18s may fit for a while. But I'm a bad size forecaster, so we'll just have to wait and see. As the weather gets colder and she gets closer to walking, I need to get comfortable with a relatively new idea: SHOES. Radical!

I could probably go on, but I shall, Sheherezade-like, leave some things unsaid in the hopes that I may return to this blog and complete the thought.

Wait, what was I talking about?

Mother of the Year: Sticker

I won't be surprised if this becomes a series. All the reasons I totally deserve the "Mother of the Year" award... NOT.

This past Thursday, Lily enjoyed some avocado. I mean, she really enjoyed it, eating up to a quarter of it, feeding herself with a spoon and all. Yay!

On Friday, Lily and I went to Kohl's to use a coupon. I got a few tops for myself and then went to the baby department to get some new sleepers. Our little porker is busting through her 12-month size sleepers already! I also thought it would be good to stock up on socks before the weather turns cold. I selected a package and handed it to my curious little baby in the stroller. No harm, right?

Five or ten minutes later, she starts coughing. It sounded like she just swallowed her drool wrong. But she gasped a few times, so I checked her mouth. Nothing. I picked her up so she could recover and she quickly returned to normal. The situation was slightly alarming for about 15 seconds, but I didn't think a whole lot of it after it passed.

Sunday night, she had a poop that made me determined that we need a diaper sprayer. Evidence of avocado is all I will say.

Monday, Erich left town for one night. Lily caught up on sleep from a weird weekend, which was great, but she was in worse and worse moods when she was awake. I started wracking my brains trying to figure out what I ate that was so offensive because it really seemed like she had the "dairy crazies." Sure, I had a little bit here and there, but I thought it was acceptable levels. She was way too crazy for acceptable levels of dairy.

Yesterday, I gave her some sweet potato, but she wasn't at all interested in eating. It was our first real miss in the solid foods department. I thought it was weird, but she wasn't sleeping well at all and so that could have been the culprit. Erich came home and validated me: the baby was crazy, and gassy.

This morning, another poop. Horror. I wiped with another diaper and took them to the toilet to swish, whereupon I discovered something unmistakably inorganic. I unfurled the little circle and could just make out some words:

cushion

foot

.

..

...

Oh dear. Shame. Head is hanging. Mother of the Year. Those socks, five days ago, had a sticker on them. A removable, eatable sticker. That's what she gagged on. That's what gave her the "dairy crazies." And I was the one who handed it to her.

In conclusion, I'm going to buy a diaper sprayer today.

Oh, and there was a mouse in our kitchen. But that's another story!

Lesson Learned, or Capsaicin is Evil

I really should have known. But I really did not expect the horror!

Rewind: we have a vegetable garden. Erich has really done a fantastic job with it. He grows several types of peppers, including jalapenos. Erich's dad, a chile aficionado, and his brother were visiting last night en route to moving bro into the dorm for his second year of college.

Erich was making homemade pizza for dinner. He also had a hankering for fresh salsa, so I volunteered to chop and assemble said salsa. I particularly enjoy dicing onions. I started with those, then moved on to the six fresh jalapenos the recipe called for. Erich offered me gloves, but I declined as I thought I would just get it done quickly, wash my hands, and that would be that. I halved them, seeded them and chopped them up. I used the same knife and cutting board and chopped up tomatoes and other ingredients and mixed it all together.

I started to feel a tingle under my ring. I felt a little burning here and there on my knuckles. I used soap and water to wash off the chile juices. Rinse and repeat.... "Wow, my hands are like, on fire," I said, extremely wittily and eloquently. The men of the house all agreed that was weird. Erich asked FIL what he does to get the capsaicin off his hands. Soap and water was the prescribed remedy. "Okay, I'll try that...for the fifth time!" I started to whimper.

And I could no longer use warm water. The burning started to get pretty intense, spreading to all ten fingers, especially concentrated on my knuckles and nail beds. This was pain. Then I couldn't carry anything moderately heavy because the pressure intensified the burning. It truly felt like I had started up a gas burner on the stove and lightly seared my fingers.

Well, I was really feeling bad for myself. I hadn't held Lily in well over an hour and I knew she was going to need to eat eventually, but I was afraid to touch anything. So I did what any Millenial would do in this situation: I asked Dr. Google for help. I was not alone among internet users who had carelessly burned their fingers slicing hot peppers without gloves. What to do, though?

I found a remedy: make a solution, one part bleach, five parts water. Occasionally dip fingers in the solution, which will neutralize the non-water-soluble capsaicin into a salt, which is water-soluble. It didn't seem to help at first, so I poured a bowl of milk to soak my hands. That felt good, I think mainly due to the cool temperature. After a while, I think the bleach solution did work because I could start to function without terrible pain as long as I wasn't gripping anything too tightly.

After testing my still-burning hands on Erich's skin (and determining that my burning was not contagious), I collected my baby, who was ready for bed. I was relieved that my hands weren't going to burn her skin. The worst part of this ordeal was being barred from even holding her until we knew I wouldn't hurt her. (And I won't even get into the issue of an unexpected poop, more solid than it used to be, the pain and yuck-factor in swishing it in the toilet and I'm definitely going to get one of those diaper sprayers... oh, looks like I got into it, sorry.)

The rest of the evening, I was distracted from my pain. As long as my fingers still smelled like the lobby of a hotel with a pool, I could function. They were STILL throbbing when I went to sleep as the bleach faded. I woke up and they seemed okay, except when any significant pressure was placed on them. After my warm shower today, it was as though they were freshly burned for at least half an hour. Even now, about 30 hours later, a slight tingle remains.

I will never, ever, ever even think about handling any combination of knife and hot pepper without gloves on ever again. EVER.

A Word About Dairy

I believe I've mentioned before that I'm avoiding dairy as a rule. The reasons are two-fold. 1. It bothers Lily via breastmilk. 2. It bothers me.

Sometimes this is hard for people to understand. What, Lily can't have milk? But her entire diet consists of... milk! How silly. Well, it's actually not that silly.

So here's a handy FAQ!

Q: Is Lily lactose intolerant?

A: No. It is extremely rare for a baby to be lactose intolerant, and it may even be impossible. My human milk is full of lactose and she's fine with it. So, again, the issue here is not with lactose.

Q: Is Lily allergic to dairy?

A: No. A true allergy to dairy protein is rare and would result in severe reactions to even a little bit of dairy in my diet. Her reactions are not nearly severe enough to make me suspect an allergy. Her problem seems to be a sensitivity, or intolerance.

Q: Then how do you know she has a problem?

A. The answer to this question derives from a bit of intuition and some simple non-scientific experiments. And, be forewarned, the following paragraphs will talk quite a bit about baby poop.

When Lily was super tiny, she pooped frequently like all newborns do. I started noticing more and more that her poop, instead of being nice and mustard-yellow and seedy, was increasingly green-colored, mucus-y, and watery. And as she got to the age when most babies start consolidating their poops, she continued to poop quite frequently (12x a day). The green mucus concerned me. The lactation consultant and the doctor told me to keep an eye on it but weren't too concerned since she was definitely healthy and gaining weight appropriately. It didn't get worse, but it also did not improve. She also had eczema, skin rashes--both of which she would scratch until she bled--and itchy nose and congestion. Her worst poop days were accompanied by extra fussiness and gas. I must note that Lily is a very easy baby. She has a very even temperament and rarely cries. So her "extra fussiness" probably served to put her in the category of an average baby. But I know my baby, and I knew that she was uncomfortable.

I knew also, from my reading, that it's common for little breastfed babies to be sensitive to certain foods in the mother's diet. Gas-causing vegetables, eggs, meat, and dairy are a few common ones. Usually they outgrow these things. I was very loath to cut anything out of my diet; I simply didn't want to deprive myself of whatever I felt like eating, and I love my ice cream and mac 'n' cheese. But I was also tired of being the "poop-nazi," carefully inspecting every diaper, waiting to see if she outgrew her apparent sensitivity with no action on my part. On a few separate occasions, I cut back on dairy and noticed some improvement. But then we'd have pizza for dinner or I'd have a little of this, a little of that and then we were back to mucus poops and fussiness. Finally, around 3.5months, I decided enough was enough: NO MORE DAIRY.

Even so, I eliminated only obvious dairy. I would still have baked goods, things fried in butter, etc. Again, Lily was not in poor health, I just knew she wasn't feeling well. Within a week of dairy elimination, the poop problems, gas and fussiness, and head-scratching were much improved. I seemed to have my answer. Lily seemed to be much happier for much more of the day, and I was very happy as well.

Q: Would it help if you switched to baby formula?

A. Seeing as formula is made from cow's milk...no. Furthermore, many babies who are sensitive to dairy are also sensitive to soy (my non-scientific experimentation bears this out). That would have me paying top-dollar for nasty hypoallergenic formula. It's far less inconvenient for me to simply alter my diet and for Lily and me to keep receiving all the other benefits of breastfeeding. And what a travesty it would be to have switched to formula and gone through even more problems and detective work without having the option to go back to breastfeeding. For, when it comes to breastmilk, if you don't use it, you lose it.

Q: So, will she outgrow this?

A: All signs point to yes. When I first eliminated dairy, even slight deviations from the rule seemed to make her symptoms come roaring back. Now, if I happen to have something with a little cheese or one spoonful of ice cream, she seems unaffected. However, if I were to treat myself to a full serving of dairy, I believe we would pay for it.

Some of her issues remain. She still scratches her forehead, but we do a better job of keeping her tiny nails trimmed, so she no longer breaks the skin. She still gets nasal congestion and rubs her nose a lot. She still gets mucus in her diaper from time to time, but she no longer gets diarrhea. It's possible that she's sensitive to other foods (crazy fussiness this morning has me suspecting beef), but she's healthy and happy, and I know when to stop obsessing. Some of those closest to me might have trouble believing that, but I promise it's true! :)

Q: Isn't this so annoying for you? You love dairy! I couldn't live without dairy!

A: At first, it was a bit inconvenient. But I had long suspected a dairy intolerance of my own. Sure enough, once it was all out of my system, I truly did not miss it. I used to crave cheese like crazy, and now I don't crave it at all. When I'm with family and everyone else is having ice cream for dessert, I'm not the least bit jealous. I'm far less prone to bloating and digestive discomfort. I feel happier in general. I do not miss dairy. I plan on continuing to avoid it as a rule, even when Lily is weaned and enjoying cow's milk and cheese.

Food intolerances are more common than most people think, and this whole process has made me more aware of those foods that seem to trigger bad reactions in me. When certain foods are simply not an option, it makes me work harder to eat healthfully. I feel like my entire day-to-day life has improved. In short, I do not feel as though I have been sentenced to a sad, dairy-free existence. I am happy!

In conclusion...

Lily is a sensitive baby. Certain foods irritate her. She has very sensitive skin. Most lotions, body wash and detergents give her rashes. And now I'm finding with solid foods, very rarely does she have no reaction. Banana gives her a rash. Toast made her gassy. Potato (or maybe the little bit of onion or butter it was cooked with) gives her a rash. I've been calling myself lazy because I don't give her much solid food, but these sensitivities are the reason why I'm a little skittish. So, at seven months of age, she continues to be 99% breastfed. She doesn't need cereal or purees for nutrition and they don't serve any function in teaching her how to eat, so I'm going to keep giving her what's best and let everything else happen organically.

Kellymom.com is a well-respected source for breastfeeding information. A got a lot of my facts from here.