Milestones

Apparently my boys like to do things backwards.

 

Yeah, yeah - I know every kid develops at his or her own pace.  But, I was talking with the pediatrician a few weeks ago and he asked if the Chipmunk was able to sit up for more than a few seconds yet.  I said that he wasn't but he was crawling everywhere just fine so I wasn't worried at all.  The pediatrician was astonished and said that he had never heard of it happening in that order before.  My response was something along the lines of too bad the Monkey was not his patient when he was a baby, because he did the same exact thing.  Except he went from crawling, to cruising, then to sitting up.  Again, the pediatrician was astounded.

 

Now, I have nothing to worry about the Chipmunk meeting his developmental milestones - he's sitting up, all on his own...and crawling. 

 

Now we just have to bring him to the Pediatric Neurosurgeon on Monday to make sure his misshapen head isn't something to worry about.  Wish us luck!

The diet of a Kindergartner

The Monkey doesn't eat.

Okay, that's a bit drastic. What I meant to say is, he survives on very little. More like water and air.

Okay, exaggerating again.

He will only eat a few things. God help you if you try and get him to eat something he doesn't like or has never even tried before. When he does eat, it takes forever.

Hubby blames me for his pickiness, but I only cook what I like so it's not like he can see me refusing to eat something. So, where is he learning it from?

I know this is supposed to be some sort of weird, cosmic, karma. But really, I know how picky I am, I don't need to be reminded of how annoying it is to others by giving me the pickiest child on the planet. Anyway, if I'm so incredibly picky why won't he eat what I've got on my plate?

I say it's genetic.

Hubby will eat anything you put in front of him - as long as it's not liver, or has nuts in it (for some reason he counts coconuts - why?).

I've always been a picky eater. The evil people who raised me always used to make fun of how picky I was (fun times) - they, like Hubby, will eat anything. So, where did I learn it from? Again, I'm resorting to genetics.

I didn't come up with this conclusion until a year and a half ago when I was in Kansas visiting with my biological mother. The first night we were there we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. My biological mother ordered first. What Hubby and I heard was enough to have us both laughing as silently as possible behind our menu's. It was like listening to something I would order..."I would like this, but could I have it with this instead of that, with some extra of that other thing on the side?". Just picture Meg Ryan's character in When Harry Met Sally, and that's what it was like (erm, what I'm like). It was very comical.

Great! Now I know why the Monkey and I are they way we are when it comes to food. Unfortunately, it doesn't help with the nightly battles we have over what he is going to eat.

Here is the complete list of what he will willingly eat without a fight:

Cheese tortellini in alfredo sauce
Mac 'n Cheese (Kraft or Annie's, definitely not homemade)
Spaghetti with meat sauce (just my homemade meat sauce, forget about taking him out to eat anywhere else and ordering that)
Plain spaghetti with butter & parmesan cheese
Peanut butter and honey sandwiches (cut into quarters) - He's better than me here, he doesn't care what kind of bread his sandwiches are made on as long as it doesn't have twigs (his word - I think it's intended to describe multigrain type breads)
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (cut into quarters)
Cheese sandwiches (that's it, just cheese. No mayo, butter, or god forbid we offer to grill it. Just plain please).
Fish sticks
Pizza (maybe - depends on the kind)
Cheese Bread (pizza dough with cheese)
Oatmeal (instant maple flavored - that's it)
Most sugary children's cereal
Ice Cream (any and all kinds)
McDonald's Cheeseburgers (without anything else on it)
Apples (peeled & cut-up)
Yogurt
Most puddings
Chicken nuggets/chicken fingers
Taquito's
Scrambled eggs
Pancakes, preferably chocolate chip

That's it. No veggies, no fruit. He adores milk, and would have buckets of that for dinner if we let him.

We might be able to convince him (with some bribing) to eat:

Taco's - don't be fooled with this one. He won't eat taco's put together like taco's. Everything has to be separate. So he has to eat a bite of meat (seasoned ground beef), a bite of cheese, a (miniscule) bite of lettuce, a bite of taco (flour or corn, he doesn't mind)
Green beans - this really depends on what's for dessert.
Bacon

He will not, under any circumstances, eat anything made out of potato's. He also will not eat, no matter what you bribe him with, hot dogs. What kid doesn't eat fries or hot dogs? Mine.

Some nights, when we don't feel like fighting, he'll go to bed without dinner. Not because we want to punish him, but because it's his choice on whether or not he wants to eat what is in front of him. Other nights, when we don't feel like fighting, I'll make something that I know he loves just to avoid the conflict. Hubby and I refuse to make a separate meal for him, and maybe that's what we're doing wrong.

I don't want to jinx it, but so far the Chipmunk is doing much better (and faster) than his brother. He'll eat any food we put in his mouth as long as it's pureed to an itty, bitty pulp. I'm hoping it continues this way - the eating whatever we put in front of him, not the pureeing to the itty bitty pulpiness. I guess he takes after Hubby. Now, if the Chipmunk doesn't want a bottle at the exact moment you are offering it to him, that's a different story.

So, what am I supposed to do about the Monkey. I want to be able to put something in front of him and be done. If he eats it, great! If not, it doesn't matter. But it does matter. If he doesn't eat he starts misbehaving. I don't want to have to bribe him to eat. It's so frustrating. Hubby isn't helping either. He'll start yelling at the Monkey if he doesn't do what he wants him to do. I don't like that approach either.

Any suggestions?

I need to vent

I understand that if I were still breastfeeding the Chipmunk then feeding him would be solely my responsibility (well, mine and daycare lady). However, the Chipmunk had only ever gone three or four days in a row without any supplementation whatsoever. That means that he's been taking a bottle pretty much since the day he was born. This also means that giving him a bottle and washing that bottle could have been performed by someone else.

Don't get me wrong, I love the quiet times we get together when I feed him. I've come to enjoy the fact that I'm the only one in our household that he will eat for (well, maybe not so much at 3am since he's still not consistently sleeping through the night - bygones). But, why does that mean that since I'm the only one that he'll eat for I should be the only one washing the bottles? Granted, it's a tedious task. But, it only takes 15 minutes - max.

Hubby will wash the bottles - if I ask him to, and even then he'll normally find one way or another to get out of it (even though I normally only ask him to wash them once or twice a week). But why do I even have to ask him to do it? He knows how many bottles we have. He knows (roughly) how many bottles are needed for one 24 hour period. Shouldn't it be self-explanatory that the bottles will need to be washed nightly?

Last night I was working on reconciling our bank account while he tried to find something to watch on TV. After I had spent almost an hour doing what I needed to do on the computer, he was lazing around on the bed still trying to find something to watch on TV. Also, before I had started working on our bank records I had bathed, fed, and put the Chipmunk to bed. When I asked him if he had washed the bottles yet, his reply was that there was still one more left.

What happens after that bottle is used in the middle of the night and we (ahem - I) need a clean one for first thing in the morning and four more clean ones to take to daycare? Is it just me, or does it seem like it would be easier to get the cleaning of the bottles done while we would normally be awake anyway than to get up early to wash them? Should I just accept this as my fate for another five months and not try to change my husband?

I won't even get started about how I appear to be the only one who knows where the Chipmunk's dresser is - you know, for putting away clean clothes.

Gah!

St. Thomas

The trip to St. Thomas went well, all things considered.

It started out rough, but at least that only gave us the ability to improve from there!

We had to be at the airport by 5am on 11/21. We hadn't started packing until 6pm, 11/20.

After a whirlwind of packing, we were finally in bed by 10:30. Since we were so wound up, I didn't fall asleep right away. So, when the Chipmunk woke up at 11pm I was actually thankful that it had happened then, making me think that I wouldn't have to wake up to feed him at some ghastly time of night before we had to wake up at 3:30. Hah hah hah hah....

The Chipmunk finished his bottle and then went straight back to sleep...ahhhhh...for an hour. After that was fuss city. So, I got about 20 minutes of sleep before fuss-fest 2008 started. At about 3am I finally woke Hubby up to deal with the fussy Chipmunk who REFUSED TO SLEEP. Granted, the Chipmunk is hit or miss when it comes to sleeping through the night, but at least he goes straight back to sleep without problems...normally. He must have known something was going on. Anyway, I managed to get another 20 minutes of sleep before I had to wake up and to get ready to go. We woke the Monkey up at 4am to get him ready for when the taxi arrived to take us to the airport.

The taxi was scheduled to arrive at 4:30.

At 4:35 the taxi was still nowhere to be seen.

I called the taxi company, where I was politely told that they were having trouble finding a minivan (all of our stuff and bodies would not have fit into a regular sized taxi).

No problem, I said. Just send two regular sized taxi's but only charge us for one (don't I think quick for someone without any sleep at 4:30 in the morning).

No can do, taxi company said. But, we can get a minivan there in 5 minutes.

Tick Tick tick tick.

5 minutes passed. No minivan. Called taxi company again. It'll be at our house in 2 minutes, but it's not a minivan...doh!

So, I told them to forget about it and we took ourselves to the airport. The reason we wanted to take a taxi was because of the amount of stuff we were taking and getting that stuff into the airport from our parked (in long-term parking) car was going to be near impossible with only two adults, a sleepy 5 year old, and a sleeping in his infant car seat baby.

I say near impossible, but as it turned out it was quite possible. With the help of some guy on his way home from a business trip (thank you thank you).

Anyway, we arrived in the airport huffing and puffing after walking from long-term parking with all of our crap at 5:20. We wait...and wait...for our turn to check in.

After checking in, I run to the security line with the Monkey and the Chipmunk while Hubby is still loading our bags to be weighed.

Security takes forever, but this ok, since now we only have to wait for our group of seats to be called to board...silver lining, right?

At this point the Monkey hasn't had any breakfast (neither have his parents) and the Chipmunk hasn't had anything since that 11pm bottle.

We have no time to get the Monkey fed, but I do have time to get some bottled water to make the Chipmunk's bottle with once we get on the plane.

It turns out that I shouldn't have bothered with the water. The Chipmunk refused to eat anything the whole day.

Oh yeah, did I mention that we were traveling for 18 hours and had to take three planes? Fun times. At least all of our planes left on time and our luggage made it to St. Thomas...see, silver lining.

So, after 18 hours of traveling, after being up all night, with a baby who refused to eat a drop I was exhausted.

Thankfully, Nanny and Pop (Hubby's parent's) were at the airport waiting for us. It was such a relief when we finally got there. And, like I said, things just got better from there.

The reason for going to St. Thomas was for my brother-in-law's wedding, the day before Thanksgiving. The stars must have aligned properly by then because things went perfectly where the Chipmunk was concerned.

After breakfast I think I fed the Chipmunk and then we all went to the beach. Hubby or I played with one or the other of the boy's. Nanny came by and offered to take the Chipmunk for a walk to see if he would take a nap - yes please Nanny. That worked out while Hubby and I took the Monkey for some lunch. After a pretty long lunch we headed back to our spot where the Chipmunk was waking up from his nap, which was good since it was time to get back to the hotel to start getting ready for the wedding.

After feeding the Chipmunk some more he went down for a 3 hour nap!

While the Chipmunk was sleeping, the Monkey played quietly (again, stars aligning) with lego's on his bed and the Hubby and I got ready for the wedding.

15 minutes before we were supposed to the leave for the wedding location, the Chipmunk was still sleeping (!). I woke him up, fed him, changed him, and put him in the car at the precise time we were supposed to be leaving...like I said, the stars aligned.

The wedding went off without too many problems, the main concern being that no sounds were made by my well rested, well fed Chipmunk.

I guess it could have been worse. The trip out to St. Thomas could have gone perfectly and the day of the wedding could have been a disaster. Thankfully, the trip home from St. Thomas actually did go perfectly. The Chipmunk ate 7 ounces every three hours on the dot and slept the entire flight from Dallas to home (on me).

Ahh, if only every day could be that perfect.