iris eating

nine months old

Iris now has nine months under her belt. She is crawling all over the place and pulling herself up and balancing. We have a play pen in the living room that she uses for standing practice. She is also all about eating Cheerio's.

We started a music class this past weekend. Iris loved all the activity, although she was a little overwhelmed by it, too. The music class lasts ten weeks so it will be fun to see her start to learn the songs and the movements. She is very good at clapping her hands and likes to take other people's hands and make them clap.

We had a cardiology and pulmonology appointment on Friday. She is growing well -- 29" long (93 percentile) and 16 lbs 11 oz (25 percentile). We stopped her final medication -- the digoxin. I am supposed to observe her over the next few weeks to see whether she has another SVT episode after coming off the medication. I'm also able to measure her heart rate using the pulse ox.

Iris is still on oxygen, which is kind of a bummer. I had hoped she'd be off it by the new year. But she has had a cold and I'm just taking it pretty slowly.

christmas 2013

A big milestone has been met: the first Christmas. It's true that holidays are way more fun with children around -- even when they don't understand a thing about what is going on.

Iris loved staring at the lights of the Christmas tree but spent most of her time working on pulling herself up, standing on her own, and banging on the piano. She would occasionally pause while banging to make sure that we were watching her.

She also really loved spending time with her Uncle Miguel. We were having dinner one night and she wouldn't stop staring at him. It helped that he kept making silly faces at her.

Iris and Uncle Miguel, #1

Iris & Uncle Miguel, #2

We managed to spend some time outdoors even though we didn't bring any snow gear. Evan and Mike went hiking one day down in White Rock Canyon and then the three of us went out for another little walk the next day.

A common Northern New Mexico scene

 Christmas morning started at the very civilized hour of 9:30am. Really, Evan and I did not get that much sleep while we were there because it was an unfamiliar sleeping area for Iris. But I imagine that our future Christmases will involve even earlier mornings.

Iris couldn't help open presents yet, so mostly she just watched people open things and hand them to her. She tried to help, but that coordination is still lacking.

A pile of gifts to open

Iris got me a very special Christmas present this year: she suddenly became a great eater. Well, at least a better eater. Apparently cardiac babies are not great eaters. Previously, we all had an impossible time getting her to take more than two bites of any type of food. It was funny to watch how quickly she could close her mouth when she didn't want what was being offered. But now, suddenly, she keeps her mouth gaping open for more food. 

Peas and brown rice, yum.

she can take care of herself

We took off south for New Mexico this morning at 4:40am. Our car was packed to the gills and our sleeping baby seemed eager for the adventure. Evan had gotten all of two or three hours of sleep, as is his pre-travel custom. I hadn't done much better since Iris was up a bit for feeding.

By about 7:45 am Iris -- who still does not know how to take a bottle -- was awake and obviously ready to eat again. We stopped somewhere along the way so I could attempt to feed her in the back seat. She had been sucking her thumb and nuzzling up to her blanket. And she hadn't eaten in over three hours, so I was anxious to feed her. We stopped so I could try to nurse in the back seat and we had a terrible time getting situated so she just couldn't get comfortable. Then she decided she wanted to pull the shiny door handle and the shiny metal post holding up the head rest. Ugh. So we continued on our way.

A little while later she was sucking her thumb again and very nearly asleep. This is typically when I have the best luck at feeding her -- when she is nearly asleep. So we pulled over again and went through the whole thing again...can't get comfortable, ooh, there's some shiny things...etc.

Back on the road again I gave her some oatmeal to tide her over.

It's possible we pulled over two or three more times. I don't remember. I got very upset that she wouldn't nurse. It used to be very easy to nurse her in the back seat of the car but she has gotten so much bigger that it was just tight and uncomfortable for both of us.

I started crying and felt sure she would starve before we made it to Los Alamos. I worry so much -- and obviously too much -- about whether she is getting enough to eat (she remains steady on her growth curve). Iris has not seen me cry very often so she was a bit mystified at what was going on and Evan kept driving while reaching around behind the driver's seat to put his hand on my leg. "It's okay, Sarah, she'll be fine," he said. "She can take care of herself."

I was thinking, "Evan she's not even 9 months old, she can't take care of herself." But, realistically, she was not going to starve and was not even close to it. She was hungry and she needed her mom to be a little more creative with figuring out how to feed her and keep all the interesting shiny things out of sight.

Finally around 9:30 we pulled over again and I got into the front seat with her. She nursed for a very short time, but long enough to keep us moving. After that Evan sat in back with her and fed her sweet potatoes. Then both of them fell asleep in the backseat and we finally made it to Dad's house eight hours later.

 This was Iris's first big road trip. She did very well and her mom cried more than she did. It was definitely a tiring day and we were happy to get a nap when we arrived. And I did learn a thing or two from the experience: Iris will eat when she is hungry, Iris doesn't fit in the back seat for nursing anymore, and it's probably best to plan to take a good, long break (and maybe several) when traveling with children.

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.