Failed Photoshoot

In an attempt to take a nice picture to frame for the grandparents for Christmas, this ended up being my favourite shot:

Noah was just not in the mood.  Almost every "smile" was a grimace.

I guess we'll try again another time.  We're running out of time, though!

K I just went through again and did a little editing.  Do you think this could make the "blow up and frame" cut?

It's still more of a grimace than an actual smile, but it's not terrible... right?

Not for the Faint of Heart

Nap training is not for the faint of heart.  At least not if your child is Noah.  I had to remind myself this morning that nap training takes longer than nighttime sleep training, and it could take several weeks to really see improvements in Noah's sleep.

I'm not sure if those first couple of days were flukes, but things have not gone terrific since then.  A lot of crying is taking place, a lot of waking up early from naps and crying for over half an hour before finally falling back asleep. 

Noah and I were at my parents' house yesterday.  We were there for many hours, and Noah obviously had to go down for a nap. He'd been awake for 3 1/2 hours, so I figured it'd be pretty simple to nurse him to sleep and put him in the crib. Well, he nursed to sleep easily, but woke up as soon as I put him in the crib. I tried to get him to go back to sleep by putting the soother in his mouth and cuddling him while he was lying there, but it didn't work. So I had to pick him back up.

I was bouncing around the room to try and get him to sleep but he wouldn't close his eyes.  I was getting really frustrated because the weekend beforehand at my parents' house I had to put Noah to sleep THREE TIMES for one nap because he kept waking up everytime he hit the mattress, and he ended up not napping at all.

I finally put a blanket over his face because he was refusing to close his eyes.  I was incredibly sick of walking around, so I sat down on a bed (there are two beds and a crib in that room) right beside the loud fan, and just kind of jiggled a little. He fell asleep like that, and I didn't want to deal with him waking up again so I decided to just hold him.

I was getting soo sleepy with the sound of the fan (plus it was the time of day I always get tired), so eventually I moved enough blankets and pillows around so that I could lie down with Noah draped overtop of me. It was so hard to get in that position without waking him up, because he is not a sound sleeper, and he did open his eyes a bunch of times. But he ended up sleeping for over an hour, so I was in the dark, boring room for over an hour and a half instead of visiting with my parents.  I only dozed for about 10 minutes of it. Then Noah jolted and woke me up. So the rest of the time I was just lying there awake with my eyes closed. It was dull. The sleepy/dozing part was nice, and the cuddling was nice, but I wished I had TV or a book or something!

I have a feeling this is how we're going to be spending all his naps at all the Christmas functions we go to.  There is no way he's going to transfer into the bottom of a pack 'n play without waking up if he can't transfer into a crib with the dropside down without waking up.  This is going to suck for me.  I wish he would sleep in a room full of people like he used to.

Tooth #7 and Nap Training Update

Tooth #7 (his right left tooth right next to his front teeth) is cutting today.

For the past week Noah has been an absolute angel.  The week before he was a huge pain in the bum, really cranky, really clingy, temper tantrums... not fun.  But for the past week he's been perfect.  Cheerful, silly, fun, and no temper tantrums.

This morning he woke up after sleeping over 11 hours straight last night, and he was pretty fussy.  That didn't fit with the sleep he had gotten and the fact that I had already fed him twice.  So I checked his gums.  This is pretty hard to do, because he really doesn't like me gently moving his lips out of the way to see in his mouth.  It took a few tries, but I knew where to look because I had seen that tooth close to the surface when he cut his last tooth.

Sure enough, the gums were starting to split apart there.  I gave him advil since he was clearly miserable, and he's been great ever since it kicked in.  I haven't checked since just after his first nap, but the tooth moved considerably further out between the first check and the second check.  Hopefully it'll be done cutting by tomorrow.

Both of his naps so far today have been about an hour.  Nap #1 I nursed him to sleep.  He woke up after 35 minutes, fussed for a minute, then went back to sleep.  Nap #2 I nursed him but didn't let him fall asleep in my arms.  He had popped off because he was done, but I put a soother in his mouth and he cuddled up against me with his eyes closed.  I wanted to cuddle with him, but I didn't want to miss a chance to put him down full, dry bum, drowsy, but awake.  He FREAKED when I put him in his crib, but only for 2 minutes and went back to sleep.  He woke up after half an hour, cried for 3 or 4 minutes, then went back to sleep for about half an hour.

Hopefully things will continue to improve.  They already seem a lot better, but I would really like to get rid of the crying in the middle of his naps!

Nap Training

(Noah is 8 months and 3 weeks old)

Around the time that Noah turned 2 months old his napping went in the crapper.  Before this time he was a normal napper.  Some long naps, some short naps, but he was a newborn, it was all normal.  Then right around the 2 month mark he stopped having long naps.  He only took four 30-40 minute naps a day (I've never understood this 45 minute mark people speak of... Noah has never had a 45 minute mark).  But at that time he was sleeping 12-13 hours at night.

Since then he'd occasionally have a good nap.  He's had a week or two where I could almost count on 1 good nap (of about an hour) each day.  He even had a week where he had TWO good naps on most of the days.  I think this occured around 5 months.

For the past long while I have been very lucky if he has two "long" naps in a week.  That means out of 21 naps he takes in a week, 2 of them are about an hour long.  Maybe.  That's not very many. 

It doesn't even matter how long he's been awake before his naps.  I've tried shortening his awake times and lengthening them - he still only naps 30 minutes (rarely - almost never - does he make it to 40 minutes).  This past weekend we had Christmas festivities at my parents' house (which I have yet to post about) and Noah only had two half hour naps on both Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday he was awake for FIVE HOURS between his first and second nap, and he STILL only slept 30 minutes max.  This 5 hour awake period was not by my choice; he had woken up as soon as he hit the mattress everytime I put him down in the crib, and since he wasn't in his own room he refused to just close his eyes again, which is what he does 90% of the time that we're at home ever since I used CIO at night.

For quite awhile now Noah has been not even hitting the 30 minute mark for most of his naps - including the time that he spends sleeping in my arms.  So since he can only fit in three naps a day because he refuses to go to sleep before he's been awake for at least 2 hours and 15 minutes, sometimes longer, that means he's getting about an hour and 15 minutes of naps each day. 

That's it.  And it's not like he's even sleeping 12 hours at night.  He sleeps about 11 hours most nights, often a little less, occasionally a little more.  But he never sleeps 12 hours at night.  So if you do the math, my 8 month old is getting 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.  That is on the low end of what a child over a year old is supposed to get; most children over a year old get a lot more than this.

I have been getting AWFULLY tired of him waking up from his naps after 20 or 25 minutes, regardless of how long he has been awake.  I am also getting concerned, because as he gets older his awake times are going to lengthen even more.  Currently his awake times are usually about 2.5 hours (although he often goes a lot longer than that before bedtime).  That's already pretty long considering how short his naps are.  But when his awake times length again and he needs to go down to 2 naps a day, he is STILL only going to be sleeping for half an hour per nap.  So then he'll only nap an hour each day.

I've been hoping Noah would self-correct his crappy naps.  I don't know why I would hope this, because all his tendencies lean toward him being a crappy sleeper.  But people would always say "Oh, as he gets older and more active he'll nap longer" (BULL!  He's been on the move since 5 months and he's been a little spider monkey since 6 months, bear crawling, real crawling, standing, climbing stairs, trying to climb couches and beds, HE NEVER STOPS MOVING).  Also, a lot of the research I've done has said that it's VERY common for young babies to have 30-45 (again with the 45!) minute naps, and this often self-corrects around 6 months of age - so don't sleep train if you don't have to.

Well, Noah was 11 days early... and not every baby follows the same timetable... so I was hoping maybe the self-correction was still coming.

It's not.  In 10 days he's going to be 9 months.  I'm done waiting.  I have decided to take matters into my own hands.  We are now nap training.

I'm not using any specific method.  Yesterday was the day I made this decision.  Noah woke up from a nap just as I was getting out of the shower.  He immediately started crying, and he had only slept 25 minutes, so I decided he could CIO.  It was kind of a decision by default.  I was annoyed with his super short naps, and I didn't want to run and get him while I was in a towel and then have to comfort a disgruntled baby and not be able to get dressed or brush out my hair until after he was happy enough to play on the floor in my bedroom.  So I let him cry.  Then by the time I was all ready for the day, he'd been crying for 25 minutes.  I didn't want to go get him then, because I didn't want to teach him that if he just cries for a really long time then Mommy will come.  I want him to realize that it's okay to cry for Mommy, but if Mommy doesn't come in a couple of minutes, she's not going to come and you should go back to sleep.  This is the same idea I use at night.  When he wakes up to eat I get him within a couple of minutes.  If he wakes up earlier than he actually needs to eat and decides to cry, I don't go get him and after a couple of minutes he realizes that and just goes back to sleep because there really wasn't anything wrong with him.

So at this 25 minute mark I was feeling bad because I didn't know if he would go back to sleep, but I also didn't want to get him and teach him to cry for a long time.  I was describing the situation to my friend who had just called, and about 2 minutes later Noah was asleep.  He slept for another 50 minutes.

Nap #2 yesterday was the same.  Noah woke up after half an hour and I let him cry.  He only cried for 7 minutes that time and then went back to sleep - although only for 25 minutes for that second chunk.  There was no nap #3 because there was no time for it.

Today I had really made the decision to nap train.  So for nap #1 I nursed him, changed his diaper, put him in his sleep sack, and cuddled, rocked, and sang to him.  His normal naptime routine.  But this time, about 30 seconds after he closed his eyes I put him in his crib and left the room.  He was drowsy, but awake.  He started crying, I got in the shower, and 10 minutes later he was asleep (he had slumped forward from a sitting up position).  35 minutes later I heard him kind of grunt/whine, but nothing else.  I checked on him after a minute and he was lying flat on his tummy.  He slept another half an hour, then got up.

Nap #2 I did the same thing.  Nursing, diaper change, sleep-sack, cuddle, rock, sing.  About 30 seconds after he closed his eyes I put him in his crib.  I am fairly certain he was still awake, and he squirmed a lot on the way down, but he just rolled onto his tummy and went to sleep.  He slept about an hour.

Nap #3 I just put him all the way to sleep.  We were on a time crunch and I didn't want him to cry for half an hour and miss his nap window and then be awake for 5 hours before bed.

I'd say today was a success.  We'll see how things go tomorrow!

Baby #2?

A few people commented on my post about how I wish Noah had a twin by suggesting that perhaps those feelings mean that I'm ready for another baby.  This is something that I pretty much never stop thinking about, and have been wanting to write a post about for awhile.  So here is my messed up jumble of thoughts regarding Baby #2.  It's hard to write out neatly, because my thoughts on this are like a plate of spaghetti noodles - all interwoven with each other.

In case you don't want to read the whole post, the short story is: I'm ready for another baby, but I'm not ready to start trying for another baby.

Now the long story.

I want another baby.  I want another 2 or 3 babies, really (not at the same time).  I'm for sure going to have at LEAST one more, and would like to have at least 3 children total.  If God allows us to get pregnant again.  Which isn't a given, as most of us know.

In some ways I feel like I'm almost ready to be pregnant again, give birth again, have a newborn again (ohhh I miss those tiny days).  I always wanted my kids to be about 2 years apart.  Me and my 3 siblings are all 19 months apart (give or take two weeks).  And we went boy-girl-boy-girl... how perfect is that, seriously?  Who knows how that happened because my mom had the most irregular cycles, and every single one of us were accidents, but whatev.  It happened. 

I loved being that close in age with my siblings, and it's even better now.  The 3 oldest of us are married, the two oldest of us have children (currently 21 months, almost 9 months, and 2 months old).  My younger sister is only 3 years and 2.5 months younger than me, even though we have a brother in between us.  We were great friends growing up, and we're great friends now.  I don't feel like there's an age difference between any of us anymore, because there barely is.  Family get togethers are awesome, it's great, I love it.

That being said, I don't want to TRY to have my kids 19 months apart.  That's a bit too close for me.  My nephews Elijah and Josiah are 19 months apart and it seems crazy, especially since Elijah isn't talking (yeah, I don't know what's up with that).  If it happened for us naturally, I would be massively thankful, but I'm not going to start the hormones and injections and daily 2 hour round trips to try and make it happen.  I'll revisit that subject in a minute.

After Noah was born Justin and I didn't (and still don't) use any form of birth control (unless you count abstinence... haha).  I'm 100% positive we'll need to do treatments for baby #2.  I don't intend to ever EVER try to get pregnant naturally again.  It's a pointless emotional drain that will send me into a hellish tailspin. 

To be honest, I still have not recovered from trying to get pregnant with Noah.  I still have a considerably decreased desire to have sex because it became such a chore when we were TTC.  After we started treatments I felt relief that I didn't have to have sex at least every other day anymore.  But even then, in my head I was always thinking along the lines of "If we have sex today or tomorrow after our IUI then we're increasing our chances of getting pregnant... if we don't and we don't get pregnant, I'll wonder if it's because of that!"

Furthermore, having sex was like a constant failure.  We wanted to get pregnant. You're supposed to get pregnant when you're having sex nonstop.  But we weren't.  We were broken.  If you sucked at, say, cooking, and everytime you cooked you were made aware of how much your cooking sucked, would you want to keep cooking?  No.

Besides being turned off by sex because of our terrible experience TTC, I have never had a very high libido, and I'm nursing and feel fairly confident that my sex drive is quite affected by that.  All that being said, I love my husband very much and I do want to have sex with him sometimes - not that the two ideas are related in my mind (unfortunately, he's often not home during those times, because he's away so much).  But even now, everytime we have sex, I can't help but think that maybe we just conceived our miracle baby.  I can't separate sex and babies anymore.

I digress.  My point was that we don't use any birth control, and would be happy if we got pregnant naturally right now, even though it's not "planned."  I suppose it probably wouldn't be impossible for an unplanned pregnancy to occur.  It's pretty frickin unlikely, but not impossible.  He has some sperm (not a lot), and I haven't hit menopause, so anything can happen.

With that being said, I still don't have my period back.  I don't expect it back anytime soon, since Noah still nurses every 2 hours all day long.  And even if I did have my period back, I suck at ovulating (or rather, I don't ovulate), so its presence in my life doesn't even make me fertile.

I don't want to wean Noah so that I can just continue to not get pregnant.  At this point I don't even want to wean Noah if I could get pregnant.  The Canadian and American Pediatric Associations (or whatever they're called) recommend nursing for at least a year, and then as long as both mom and baby want to after that.  The World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least 2 years, and then as long as you both want after that.  There has been a lot of research done into how beneficial and healthy it is to nurse your toddler.  I would get into it all now, but it really deserves it's own post.  All that really needs to be said in this context is that extended nursing is extremely beneficial for a child (and the mother).  I'm not sure how long exactly I will be nursing Noah, but I plan on nursing him well into his second year of life.

I thought I would for sure have to wean Noah before starting fertility treatments again.  Now I don't know how true that is.  In my research I came across a renowned breastfeeding expert from Toronto.  He has information on his website about medication and breastfeeding.  Very few medications are actually contraindicated in breastfeeding, and the information "out there" is all from pharmaceutical companies who just want nothing to do with any research, testing, and/or possible liability, so they say not to breastfeed while taking their drugs.  He also said that most drugs taken by injection are fine because most of them can't be absorbed by the stomach (which is exactly the case with injectible FSH), so even if they go into your breastmilk the baby can't absorb them, so he won't be affected.  I will obviously contact him and ask about my specific medications, but I was very relieved to find this out.

However, if I don't have my period back, I'm pretty sure the point is moot.  I don't have it back because of my prolactin levels, and the only way to change those is to stop nursing.  I doubt fertility treatments would work very well if my prolactin levels are sky high.  Or would they?  I don't know, because that wasn't my problem before.

I'm also not ready to get into the whole fertility treatment dance.  It's so all-consuming.  And it has to be.  I firmly believe that if I hadn't paid as much attention to every little follicle and every little medication, I wouldn't have gotten pregnant when I did.  I was pushy.  I didn't just walk in and walk out and wait for them to tell me things.  I asked questions.  I suggested medication increases.  I demanded review appointments with the RE.  I pushed for triggering when I knew I needed it (for some reason after CD13 everything would go to hell and my follicles would start shrinking).  And almost every cycle I would take things into my own hands by adding an extra injection here or there because the nurses could never remember how retarded my ovaries were.

My clinic is an hour away.  I don't know when I'm going to be ready to either take that drive with Noah every day for a week out of every month (how fun for him), or try and line up grandparents to babysit him while I go on my own.

I really enjoy Noah.  And while having a baby kind of turns your entire life upside down, you do get used to the new "normal."  This is as simple as our lives as parents is ever going to be.  One kid.  As Noah gets older it gets easier for us to go places and do things.  As he gets even older it will be even more fun.  I already can't wait for springtime and summertime with an actual toddler.  It will be a blast!  Parks, beaches, playing outside, swimming... I can't wait to do all these fun things with Noah.  This past summer was kind of a drag.  Noah couldn't sit up until 5 1/2 months, which was the end of August, and couldn't sit indefinitely until 6 months, which was the middle of September.  Whenever we went somewhere outside he had to be held.  And it was friggin BOILING out this summer.  My hydro bill was TWICE as high as it's ever been.  It was crazy.  So besides our vacation to the cottage at the beginning of July (which will be so much more fun this coming July), we didn't really do anything.

I don't want to rush into having another baby and not be able to enjoy Noah's ages and stages because I'm consumed with the newer, needier baby.  But on the other hand, I would love for my boys (I'm 90% certain my next child will be a boy) to be close in age. 

I can't really decipher exactly what I want here.  I don't know when we'll start trying for baby #2, because it's not a simple thing.  If it just involved "pulling the goalie" and we'd be pregnant a couple of months later, that's not a huge decision.  You can just have the attitude of  "Whatever happens, happens."  Because of our infertility, the decision to have #2 is really a DECISION.  It's a decision times a thousand.  Trying to have baby #2 involves long daily trips, many doctors and nurses, referrals, invasive tests, injections, mood swings, hot flashes, and a lot of emotional turbulence.

I don't know when I'm going to be ready to go through all of that.  I'm really having a good time with Noah, and when I start to get pregnancy-fever, or new-baby-fever, I remind myself that Noah is a baby (a very mobile baby who sometimes seems older than he is).  He's still little.  He still nurses exclusively all day long.  He still needs me to help him fall asleep at naptime and nighttime (although not throughout the night).  He still needs to nurse once overnight.  He's a Mama's Boy.  He's not ready to share me with another baby (a littler, extremely needy baby).  And I don't want to force him into doing that too early. 

When Noah was born I was fairly sure we would start trying for #2 shortly after he turned a year old. That would give us about 6 months to get pregnant (using fertility treatments) and to have the two kids about 2 years apart. But Noah turns a year old in less than 3 1/2 months! I don't feel like I'll be ready in 3 1/2 months, or 4 months, or even 5 months.

So while, yes, I would love to be pregnant again, I also don't relish the idea of nursing Noah with tender pregnancy boobs.  And while I would be thrilled to have another baby soon, I don't like the idea of feeling stressed out about getting Noah to become more independent so that he can handle the presence of the new baby (ie. falling asleep on his own, weaning him, etc).

The conclusion: I would like to have another baby, but I'm not ready to start trying for another baby.  And I don't know when I really will be ready for the gong-show that is fertility treatments.


I apologize for the jumbled mess of thoughts.  Like I said, it's like a plate of spaghetti noodles. 

8 1/2 Month Pictures

I have so many things I need to post on here and on FB.  I decided to go with here first.  I was just uploading pictures from my camera onto my computer and found some I just really want to post for my own memories.  So, I bestow upon you a plethora of pictures.

Yes, Noah can hang from the top of his gate:

We bought his this Santa hat, size 12-24 months.  He's 8 1/2 months, and the hat barely fits on his head.  I had to shove it on.  I think I'm returning it, but he looks sooo cute, doesn't he?

I was cleaning up after dinner while Justin got ready for his first basketball game of the season.  Noah had just gotten up from his nap, and Justin wanted to know what to do with him.  I told him to take him with him.  I figured when I went in there (the spare bedroom where Justin keeps his clothes) that Noah would be crawling around on the floor.  Instead, he was still in his sleep sack with his soother in his mouth, sitting in the middle of the bed playing with a hanger and his Dad's belt.  It melted my heart.

Little stinker getting into my cupboards:

I want it!

And his little stinker face:

In a track suit:

He started waving this past Saturday!!

I think he looks young here:)

Mommy and Noah at 8 1/2 months... couldn't get a smile from him:

 But we got a wave!!

I Wish He Had a Twin

Today we had a playdate with Erin and Aubrey. It's nothing out of the ordinary, as we usually have at least one playdate a week. But Noah and Aubrey are just so cute together. They love each other so much. As soon as they see each other they get so excited, babbling to each other, laughing, holding hands, touching each other, following each other around as they crawl and cruise the furniture, giving each other kisses, playing with toys together... it makes me wish Noah had been a twin.

When I was doing fertility treatments I wanted twins. When I was first pregnant I hoped it would be twins.  There were two follicles side by side, just waiting to become babies.  It didn't happen.  Then when my pregnancy got so excruciatingly painful that I was so happy I wasn't pregnant with twins, because I could barely move without breaking into a sweat and tears springing to my eyes. Imagine if there had been two in there!

I was also happy I didn't have to deal with any twin pregnancy complications, or having a c-section. Vaginal childbirth SANS EPIDURAL is absolutely, positively, agonizingly torturous (or at least mine was - I was completely delirious from the pain), and the episiotomy recovery is no walk in the park, either! But at least I didn't have to push out TWO babies (oh the horror) without an epidural (they're not available at my hospital, for anyone who is wondering why I would choose not to get one when I was experiencing pain 80 thousand times worse than what I anticipated - and I anticipated BAD). And I'm glad I got to experience that whole vaginal birth thing; as horrifying as it was, it was so miraculous. I still can't believe my body could DO that! And it's true that the second that baby leaves your body, all the pain is gone and it was all totally worth it. Besides, not being able to get pregnant naturally makes me want more of the other steps in childbearing/rearing to be natural.  Anyway, I digress.

After Noah was born I was even happier he wasn't a twin.  I didn't know what I was thinking before!  Newborns are HARD WORK. Babies of any age are hard work. But newborns are especially hard. And I didn't have a baby with colic. Noah was an amazingly good newborn. He never even cried until he was, like, 2 weeks old. He did have a period from about 3 weeks until 8 or 9 weeks that he was cranky and fussy pretty much all the time, but no constant screaming. No colic. Just whiny.

He may not have had colic, but that kid LIVED on my boobs. He nursed every hour to an hour and a half for MONTHS. He was about 5 months old before he started making it to 2 hours between feedings. Even now at 8 months he needs to nurse every two hours. I think he has a small stomach.

Plus he has always needs to be rocked or nursed to sleep. He is not a child who can be laid down drowsy but awake and put himself to sleep. Maybe I made him that way. In fact, that wouldn't surprise me at all if that was completely my fault. Regardless, he is a SHITTY napper and has been since he was a couple of months old. He is a good nighttime sleeper again, but only because we used CIO. He tends to lean in the direction of being a crappy all-around sleeper.

I don't know what I would have done if there were two of him. First there's the breastfeeding thing. Exclusive breastfeeding is important to me. I was lucky to have a good latcher and therefore a great supply, and my milk came in FULL FORCE 48 hours after I gave birth. So I could have kept up with triplets. But if I had twins who both nursed as often as Noah nursed, I would have had to have 24/7 help because I would have been able to do nothing but nurse, with the occasional pee break. But, like I said, exclusive breastfeeding is extremely important to me. It's just my thing.

Then there's the sleep thing. It boggles my mind to think of having TWO horrible sleepers to deal with. Hats off to you twin mommies who do it.

So while I love Noah, I would NOT have wanted two of him at the same time during the first, say, 4 or 5 months of his life. And even now, having one baby is obviously easier than having two, so I enjoy the singleton aspect of his existence.

BUT... now that he's older, and mobile, and loves other kids, and has separation anxiety... I think he would be perfect as a twin. And I really think I could handle it now.

Standing Alone

For the past month (since about 7 1/2 months) Noah has been occasionally standing alone - as in not hanging on to anyone or anything - for short bursts.  He started out with bursts of just a couple of seconds of steady standing, and by last week (8 months and 1 week) he had a record of standing totally unassisted for almost 10 seconds straight.

It all just depends on his mood.  He can do it really well if he wants to, but he isn't always interested in doing it when we try to get him to.  A lot of the time that we stand him up in front of us he tries to jump up and down, because our hands are under his armpits.  If I hang onto his hands he doesn't usually try to jump, but sometimes he'll just sit down so that he can crawl away.

Sometimes he forgets himself and lets go of what he's holding onto when he's standing.  At this point he'll either plop on his bum after a second, or actually stay steady for awhile before doing a slow and controlled move to his bum.

He's not adept at this unassisted standing thing, by any means.  But I'm pretty impressed with his degree of balance so far!

Tooth #6 (and Possibly #7)

Today I discovered that Noah has cut his sixth tooth, the other top middle tooth (his left one).  So luckily he won't have a snaggle-tooth.  He might have an ENORMOUS gap though, because the two teeth look really far apart right now.

I believe he is soon going to cut his top left tooth beside the middle teeth.  That tooth is RIGHT there, and since he seems to be on a teething spurt, hopefully it will come out soon.  He seems pretty miserable the past couple of days.  It's hard to know for sure where the misery is coming from, though.  There are so many possibilities at this age.  Teething, overtiredness, frustration (because he keeps doing things he's not allowed to do), separation anxiety, hunger... it's really hard to tell what the culprit is.

My mom bought me some homeopathic teething drops, which I gave Noah 20 minutes before I nursed him (they're supposed to be given away from meals).  I doubt I'll be able to tell if they're working or not.  But he IS playing happily in his jumperoo right now.  And that is a rare occurance these days.

Separation Anxiety

(Noah is about 8 1/2 months old)

I can't remember exactly when Noah's separation anxiety started.  I think it was one of those things that gradually crept up on me.  I do know it's been going on for at least a month.

It started out with some fussing if I put him in the playpen, or if he was on the floor and I walked into the kitchen.

It has progressed to full blown, red-faced screaming as he sadly jumps in the jolly jumper while I shower with the curtain open talking and singing to him as the puddle on my floor gets bigger and bigger.  Lesson learned.  Do not attempt a shower unless he's taking one of his half hour naps.

I can't do anything.  I can't do chores.  I can't make myself something to eat.  I can't even stand up when we've been playing on the floor without him crying and trying to climb my legs.  As soon as he senses I'm about to walk away - even if it's to somewhere nearby where he can still see me - he starts crying.  And the shower thing: I was about 5 feet away from him, looking at him and talking to him, but he apparently knew that I was otherwise incapacitated and couldn't pick him up.  Because normally he loves his jolly jumper.

I do all my housework while Justin is home so he can be with Noah.  Justin isn't always enough for Noah, though.  Sometimes he just needs his Mama.  For example, after his last nap today he woke up crying, as he almost always does.  Justin went and got him and he was okay (not great).  But as soon as he saw me the big pouty lip came out and the eyes welled up and he reached for me.

Just now I went to the kitchen to check on dinner.  We have an open concept house, so I'm still visible when I'm in the kitchen.  Justin was with Noah in the living room, but Noah started whimpering and crawling after me.  When I came back I sent his wheely giraffe toy rolling across the floor to him.  He usually loves that thing, but he knocked it over, pushed it to the side, and crawled into my arms.  "I don't want no stinkin' giraffe, I want my Mama!"

Last week sometime he woke up really early from a nap (after about 20 minutes of sleep, including the time he spent in my arms).  I had just finished making a really nice lunch, and I was frustrated because so many of my meals have been interrupted by having to hold him because he's upset.  So I got Noah from his crib and put him in his jumperoo.  Clearly he could sense that I was frustrated, because he started wailing.  Justin picked him up and tried to calm him down but the wails and crocodile tears continued until I took him in my arms.  This was perhaps not an issue with separation anxiety, but instead an example of how intuitive Noah is, and how sometimes only Mommy will do.  Even when it has nothing to do with boobs.

It's not ALWAYS like this though.  I'd say 30% of the time he's happy enough without me right next to him.  But 70% is a lot of the time.  I can hardly go to the bathroom.  Noah has to come with me and sit on the floor playing with something. 

The playpen?  Forget it.  Not unless I want an automatic meltdown.

It's hard to be a SAHM in a remote little town where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go and be totally glued to your kid for his every waking minute.  And my husband is gone A LOT. 

I'm not going to lie.  About 20% of this post is flat-out complaining.  Being a SAHM is not always easy.  I'm not going to say that I'd rather be a working mom - I wouldn't.  But it's not easy to be alone all day everyday with a cranky baby who needs to be right next to you every second, especially when you don't get to see your husband - or any other adult - much (or at all) several days in a row (like last week) and the previously-mentioned baby barely naps.

The other 80% of me feels very tolerant of this behaviour.  It makes me feel loved, and important.  Noah obviously knows that I am his most important caregiver.  I nurse him all day, I put him to sleep every single time he sleeps, I bathe him every single time he has a bath.  Noah knows that without me, he'd be screwed.  He loves me.  In a funny way, I feel that the separation anxiety means that he appreciates me.

Furthermore, I am fairly certain this is not "put on."  He is literally feeling anxiety.  That's not fun!  I had bad separation anxiety when I was about 4 years old, and I remember it very vividly.  I remember being terrified when I didn't know where my mom or an adult was. One time I ran to my neighbours house panicked because I couldn't find my mom. It turned out she was just upstairs blowdrying her hair, but I was crying and yelling for her and she couldn't hear me so I was convinced she had left the house without me.

Another time we were being babysat by this woman and she left the house and went to the neighbours for some reason.  I was so scared that there was no grown up around so I ran outside and went down the driveway to find her. She ended up getting me in so much trouble and I had to sit in a chair facing the corner.  Needless to say, she never babysat us again. It still makes me feel anxious inside when I think about it! I remember how scared I was running down the driveway to find a grownup and then I got in trouble for it.

So I try not to get annoyed at Noah's separation anxiety, even though it's crippling my life. Because it's obviously very real to him, and I don't want to cause him extra anxiety by acting frustrated or ignoring his cries.  Hopefully he will get past this sooner rather than later.  In the meantime, any coping suggestions are more than welcome!