day care and stay-cation

After losing our babysitter to a full-time job, we've started a search for day care. I would like to find a place we can take Iris part time so that I can actually make some progress on my dissertation. Evan is starting to come home early twice a week so I can leave and work on it, but that's not going to be enough. And all the potential sitters I find have full-time jobs and want to come in the evenings. So we're considering day care. Also, Iris is starting to get bored during the day and I just don't have it in me to sit and play with her all day long, especially when the house still needs to be cleaned and unpacked.

Our first visit to a local day care was this morning at 10:30am. As we left after the tour, Evan said something like, "The idea of leaving her at day care made my stomach sink." Like a vague, sinking dread. We didn't love this day care. Evan was particularly dismayed at the food offered at the day care...chicken nuggets...fruit cocktail in syrup. If Evan and I could have our way we'd take her to a day care where they served fresh cooked organic food, but I highly doubt we'll find something like that. And in any case, she's not even eating anything yet. Well, I did seem to find a rice cereal that works, but otherwise, nothing. [I'm not wild about giving her rice cereal and plan to give her avocado as her next food. I tried oats today and she didn't seem to love those.]

Evan took a mini stay-cation this week --- two and a half days off of [office] work. He has done an incredible amount of work on the house and has involved himself in Iris's bedtime routine. She is mesmerized by the guitar every time he plays it. Tonight she snuggled in to Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith, and Evan's standby -- JS Bach. He plans to continue the much needed break by not working over the weekend, too. Tomorrow we'll probably go out for breakfast as long as Iris is up for it and then he plans to go back to the Brazilian jiu-jitsu training center. He went tonight for the first time in a very long time.

Iris had a rough week. Monday night we had another freaky (but shorter) maybe-SVT episode. I had forgotten to give her her Prevacid [for reflux] on Sunday so I decided to try her off it for a few days to see how she did. She still needs it, it seems. She is also teething and has been in some pain because of that. I started her back on the Prevacid and have been giving her Tylenol for the teeth so today was a pretty good day.


Back to day care. It is controversial [like most things related to parenting, and, well, mothering, specifically]. A recent Slate piece sums it up nicely. Even though Evan and I did not love this day care we visited, Iris did like it. That is, she liked the toys and the nice employees and it seemed that there was a lot of potential for stimulation and social interaction -- two things she lacks at home. Some days I am the only person she sees and even though I do think that the parent-child bond is absolutely essential to her healthy development, I do not think that it is enough for her to see only me. And it's certainly not healthy for me to be "on duty" 24/7. Here's a Forbes article summing up the link between 'intense' parenting and depression in women.

I am coping fairly well but it is very definitely time for me to get a bit more of a break than I've had. I lost my wallet and I had a mini meltdown when I realized it. This was the morning after Iris had been up several times in the night and I was sleep deprived and too tired to exercise. A bad mix.  The good news is that my wallet was in the lost & found at Ikea [fully in tact]. And now I'm off to nurse Iris one more time before I fall in to bed and I hope to stay there until 4:45am when I have to give her a dose of Sildenafil.

standing practice

booster seat

Iris is learning how to eat rice cereal. 

lows & highs

When I was in college my roommates and I had a weekly roommate dinner. During that time we'd share our weekly highs & lows. For this post I'll start with some lows and end on highs.

Iris seems to have had an SVT episode last night. She's on medication that is supposed to keep them from happening, but it's possible that it's not working as well since she's gotten bigger and is on the low end of the dosage. Apparently it's possible to have SVT episodes that go by totally unnoticed by parents. But in Iris's case she screams at the top of her lungs and can't stop crying for the duration of the episode. This is what happened last night around 9:30. Evan and I were both asleep and she started wailing out of nowhere. We tried some Vegel maneuvers on her, which slow the heart down. I've seen her heart rate get up in the 220 range. When she sleeps she's averaging about 100 these days and when we finally were able to get a reading on her last night she was at 170. We don't know for sure that it was an SVT episode but it seems likely, mostly because there's nothing else that we can think of to explain it.

Yesterday morning we had an appointment with genetics. Her first round of genetic testing showed no abnormalities, which is a relief. However the geneticist suggested we get additional testing to see whether Iris has some other syndromes that would change her future care. The idea is that she might be more susceptible to aneurysms. I was dismayed to hear this...I want to believe that the worst is behind us, but I have the nagging suspicion that it is not and I frequently wonder whether Evan and I will outlive our daughter.  

After we were done with the appointment, Iris and I walked [well, she sat in the stroller] across the Anschutz Medical Campus to get food at Udi's. I became very wistful when I saw all the people there taking breaks from their jobs. It's very difficult for me not to have any kind of professional life right now. Yes, I love spending time with Iris but the days can be very long and there's a constant feeling that I'm not spending enough time with her when I try to do other work.  

Something that is both a high and a low: Evan has been working really, really hard. I think I write that in almost every post. Despite the diluvial rains he managed to stain our interior doors in the garage and finished installing the kitchen cabinets. I'm grateful that he has worked so hard on the house but he has worn himself out and had to come home early on Monday to take a nap and buy himself some meat to eat. 

Now the highs.

We went to Costco this morning. That's not the high. The people in the Costco parking lot are the high. They are some of the best people in Denver. Every time I go [once a week] someone in the parking lot helps me. Today it was an older gentleman with a New York accent who said, "I'll take that cart for you. You've done enough work." Another high -- Evan and I took Iris out for breakfast this weekend. She did great and we thoroughly enjoyed our morning. Third, having a babysitter come to watch Iris is amazing. I was able to get a little work done on my dissertation and ended up going to get my hair cut. It's a bit shorter than I had wanted but it feels good to have short hair again.

five months old

Iris was five months old yesterday. To celebrate, Colorado is having historic rainstorms and flash flooding.  She seems to have some red in her hair and sucks only her left thumb. She also doesn't make much noise in the morning when she wakes up so I don't always know that she's awake. But when we go in to see her she is all smiles. On Monday we go to the genetics department to arrange for further testing.

Iris at five months

I heard an NPR interview with the author of a new children's book, Wonder, which made me want to read the book straight away. And to have the future Iris read the book. It was inspired by the author's personal experience of not knowing how to help her son behave around another small child who had a facial deformation. I take it that the gist of the book is to emphasize the importance of kindness and that one of the main takeaways is: "When given the choice between being right, or being kind, choose kind." I probably don't think that this should be acted out all the time -- there are some times when being right is really, really important -- but too many people [maybe myself included?] think being right is always the most important thing no matter what.

**

A lot has happened recently. For one, we moved. The house is still in shambles but we're in a house! Soon we [Evan] will install the kitchen cabinets and by next Friday I hope that the contractor we hired will have the counter top finished. Evan is planning to install all the doors and the baseboard very soon, too. As soon as that is complete we can actually move the big furniture in and decide what to do with all the books. 

My dad, Nelson, and brother, Miguel, helped us move last weekend in intense heat. There is no way we could have done it without them. They worked very hard and even had time to do some tree trimming.

Miguel in a tree. Dad in background [little blue speck].

When Evan is not working on the house he is working at his job. He left yesterday for a business trip to Ann Arbor and from what he reports back, the trip is going very well. He returns tomorrow and has pledged not to work over the weekend. I have reserved Saturday morning for a family outing. We are going to attempt to take Iris out to breakfast in a cute neighborhood I used to frequent.

I said long ago that one of my goals was to run a 1/2 marathon in October. Well, I have sorely failed at preparing for that goal. I am running, which I'm happy about, but it's been difficult to carve out the time. And I still haven't started running with Iris in the running stroller, even tough that's what it's for. The idea of running with the oxygen tank makes me a little nervous though it shouldn't.

My main goal should be to actually do work on my dissertation. This has still not happened. We have a sitter starting tomorrow who has been hired explicitly to help me get work done on the dissertation. May I actually use that time for the said purpose.

play date

Jill and Dara came over Thursday morning for a play date. Dara is three weeks younger than Iris. It is really helpful to have another baby around -- and another mom -- to make sure that Iris is basically healthy and developing well.

In the afternoon Iris had an appointment with the pediatrician and was due for her shots. She is gaining weight well -- was 13lbs 2oz -- and her head has gotten quite a bit bigger, which made me happy. She still dislikes being on her belly but we're working on that.