Just after the Boy was born, we got him a bouncy chair. We went for one of the cheaper ones, as I'd read they were easier to bounce. Of course, the Boy was too little to bounce in it at first.
Over the last four months, it has been well used. Battered, even. We lost the electric unit that originally fitted into the base - I couldn't stand the tinny rendition of "Sealed With A Kiss", although it always reminded me of Jason Donovan covering the song in my childhood, and the Boy didn't like the vibrate setting.
It came with two little toys that attached to the front. First the Boy batted them with his fists, then learned to uncertainly grasp them between his fingers. Then, when we stuck them to the front with their velcro straps, he would immediately reach forward and rip them off, and chew them.
The chair has gone everywhere with the Boy that involved an overnight stay. I've gotten used to it, even although it is stained beginning to fray where the joints have rubbed against the fabric. It's not a thing of great beauty, but it's very useful and the Boy now loves bouncing in it.
We've noticed, in the last couple of days, that the Boy is now able to learn forward when he's sitting in the chair. So,very soon, we're going to need to get rid of it, before he's strong enough to flip it over.
It's great he's getting so big, and thriving. It's all a sign that his tiny-baby stage is passing all too quickly.
So, there are a lot of memories attached to the chair. But, while I obviously wonder if we will ever need another one, I don't want to end up getting massively attached to every vest, teething toy and weaning spoon the Boy uses. Life is too short. And there's always going to be some other bit of kit waiting to take up space.
I'll always think of the Boy being a baby when I hear "Sealed With A Kiss", though.
Monday, 8 October 2012
Friday, 5 October 2012
Munchied
Before the Boy, I knew about the formula vs breastfeeding debate, the disposable vs reusable nappy debate, the natural birth vs a section debate, and all the others. Roughly, you can group them into a "I'm going to be as natural as possible and save the planet" and a "A bit of technology and convenience goes a long way, and can sometimes be essential".
I didn't know about the early weaning debate, about whether or not babies should get any food before 6 months.
On one side, there is WHO, websites like Kellymom, and various other right-on people. Giving solids before 6 months can damage your baby's health, they say. Wait, let them go straight onto meat, dairy, chunkier food. Avoid the evils of the baby food industry and the monotony of purees.
On the other side, there is the baby food industry, most older people, who remember when babies were weaned at 12 weeks. The only evidence is that babies should not get solids before 17 weeks. There's some evidence that waiting until 6 months can mean your son or daughter is more likely to develop allergies. Older health professionals generally have a "every baby is different" approach, which makes sense to me.
I find the supermarket aisle that's full of lurid looking baby food a bit alarming, though. Over the years, I've gradually stopped eating ready meals. There's something that goes against the grain to make the Boy eat stuff out a packet or a jar when I find most processed food flavourless, and full of suspicious chemicals. I can understand using them occasionally - but the idea of giving jars all the time is not appealing.
So, I've started giving the Boy food before 6 months, but only home cooked, so far. It feels like the right choice - he's certainly interested, and positively enjoys chowing down on mashed bananas, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, swede, and other sweet root veg. He usually makes cooing noises, and occasionally shouts at us if we don't feed him fast enough. He has had several attempts at feeding himself with the spoon, with more enthusiasm than skill - he usually ends up smearing a fair bit of the food over his face before it finds his mouth. He's not so keen on potatoes, but I can live with that.
As usual, I find the "natural is best" camp slightly frustrating - it seems to be as much about judging as anything else. There's too much ideology involved, I think. Somewhere along the line, being pro breastfeeding appears to have turned into wanting to breastfeed exclusively for as long as you possibly can, and be positively delighted if your baby doesn't want any food at 6 months. I don't think giving some pureed parsnip at 18 weeks is the same as putting a rusk in the bottle at 8 weeks, or shoveling additives, vodka or crack into his little mouth, but some of the early weaning hardliners definitely seem to believe it is. I think some of the smugness attached to this makes it less likely that some women will ask advice.
Anyway, we will carry on with the purees. Anyway, it's not at all long before we hit the six month mark, and then the fun will really begin.
I didn't know about the early weaning debate, about whether or not babies should get any food before 6 months.
On one side, there is WHO, websites like Kellymom, and various other right-on people. Giving solids before 6 months can damage your baby's health, they say. Wait, let them go straight onto meat, dairy, chunkier food. Avoid the evils of the baby food industry and the monotony of purees.
On the other side, there is the baby food industry, most older people, who remember when babies were weaned at 12 weeks. The only evidence is that babies should not get solids before 17 weeks. There's some evidence that waiting until 6 months can mean your son or daughter is more likely to develop allergies. Older health professionals generally have a "every baby is different" approach, which makes sense to me.
I find the supermarket aisle that's full of lurid looking baby food a bit alarming, though. Over the years, I've gradually stopped eating ready meals. There's something that goes against the grain to make the Boy eat stuff out a packet or a jar when I find most processed food flavourless, and full of suspicious chemicals. I can understand using them occasionally - but the idea of giving jars all the time is not appealing.
So, I've started giving the Boy food before 6 months, but only home cooked, so far. It feels like the right choice - he's certainly interested, and positively enjoys chowing down on mashed bananas, apples, pears, sweet potatoes, swede, and other sweet root veg. He usually makes cooing noises, and occasionally shouts at us if we don't feed him fast enough. He has had several attempts at feeding himself with the spoon, with more enthusiasm than skill - he usually ends up smearing a fair bit of the food over his face before it finds his mouth. He's not so keen on potatoes, but I can live with that.
As usual, I find the "natural is best" camp slightly frustrating - it seems to be as much about judging as anything else. There's too much ideology involved, I think. Somewhere along the line, being pro breastfeeding appears to have turned into wanting to breastfeed exclusively for as long as you possibly can, and be positively delighted if your baby doesn't want any food at 6 months. I don't think giving some pureed parsnip at 18 weeks is the same as putting a rusk in the bottle at 8 weeks, or shoveling additives, vodka or crack into his little mouth, but some of the early weaning hardliners definitely seem to believe it is. I think some of the smugness attached to this makes it less likely that some women will ask advice.
Anyway, we will carry on with the purees. Anyway, it's not at all long before we hit the six month mark, and then the fun will really begin.
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Update
Sorry, I've been crap at ICLW and commenting. And even blogging. This is what's been going on, chez Sushi.
Back to work: Not yet, not quite yet. But I am getting more to do from home, and actually having to go into the world is very close now, a couple of weeks away. And it sucks.
The four month sleep regression: I thought the Boy was doing so well with sleeping. For the last wee while - I'm not exactly sure how many nights - he's been pretty bad. All the cliches about going back to the newborn sleeping apply. He is the clockwork Satan - albeit a very cuddly one - when he's jerking about and shouting at 3am, apparently trying to burn off excess energy. The reward seemingly is that, at the end of this, he'll be more mobile and generally a lot more grown up. The bad news is that this phase can take three months or more. But hey, he's still spent much less time growing than he did in the freezer, and this is much easier than IVF (the agony of long haul treatment starts to fade a little when you're just trying to deal with stuff, but I keep reminding myself that it really wasn't as bad as the short haul bout of sleeplessness I face at the moment).
Skitters: Yum! Yep, I had a really terrible stomach upset that seems to be doing the rounds. Ironically, the last night the Boy slept normally was the one when the tummy bug kicked in and I was up every hour.
Eating: I need to do a longer post about people being ideologically opposed to solid food. And me being mostly ideologically opposed to jarred food. But the Boy is chowing down on a happy middle ground of purred root veg and banana. He really enjoys it, to the point he occasionally shouts at us if we don't have a spoonful ready the second he's swallowed the one he's on. And if we're not, he grabs the spoon and his dinner ends up coating his eyebrows.
Mum: My mum has gone from being convinced I have gallstones because I eat deep fried pizza all the time to being convinced it's because I fucked about with my hormones too much during IVF. The former isn't true. The latter might be, but I still resent her telling my sister she hopes I don't try for number 2.
What else:I still haven't found the Boy's passport. I made kimchi the other night. Which reminds me - I want to dance to that Gangnam Style jobby before it passes from it's very brief moment at the pinnacle of cool to being tomorrow's "Agadoo" (But I suspect it will have passed its sell by date by the time I'm ready to go within a mile of a nightclub!).
And I will catch up with everyone's blogs soon.
Back to work: Not yet, not quite yet. But I am getting more to do from home, and actually having to go into the world is very close now, a couple of weeks away. And it sucks.
The four month sleep regression: I thought the Boy was doing so well with sleeping. For the last wee while - I'm not exactly sure how many nights - he's been pretty bad. All the cliches about going back to the newborn sleeping apply. He is the clockwork Satan - albeit a very cuddly one - when he's jerking about and shouting at 3am, apparently trying to burn off excess energy. The reward seemingly is that, at the end of this, he'll be more mobile and generally a lot more grown up. The bad news is that this phase can take three months or more. But hey, he's still spent much less time growing than he did in the freezer, and this is much easier than IVF (the agony of long haul treatment starts to fade a little when you're just trying to deal with stuff, but I keep reminding myself that it really wasn't as bad as the short haul bout of sleeplessness I face at the moment).
Skitters: Yum! Yep, I had a really terrible stomach upset that seems to be doing the rounds. Ironically, the last night the Boy slept normally was the one when the tummy bug kicked in and I was up every hour.
Eating: I need to do a longer post about people being ideologically opposed to solid food. And me being mostly ideologically opposed to jarred food. But the Boy is chowing down on a happy middle ground of purred root veg and banana. He really enjoys it, to the point he occasionally shouts at us if we don't have a spoonful ready the second he's swallowed the one he's on. And if we're not, he grabs the spoon and his dinner ends up coating his eyebrows.
Mum: My mum has gone from being convinced I have gallstones because I eat deep fried pizza all the time to being convinced it's because I fucked about with my hormones too much during IVF. The former isn't true. The latter might be, but I still resent her telling my sister she hopes I don't try for number 2.
What else:I still haven't found the Boy's passport. I made kimchi the other night. Which reminds me - I want to dance to that Gangnam Style jobby before it passes from it's very brief moment at the pinnacle of cool to being tomorrow's "Agadoo" (But I suspect it will have passed its sell by date by the time I'm ready to go within a mile of a nightclub!).
And I will catch up with everyone's blogs soon.
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Someone else's bad day
Just after I graduated, I lived in Temporary Office Worker land, on and off for about four years. Sometimes it was fun. Sometimes it was no security and a pile of shite. Mostly, I think it was ok, but I had a couple of really bad placements where I just couldn't hack the office politics and couldn't seem to do anything right. I was young and a bit daft, and although I tried hard I remember getting a few bollockings for not doing things right. On a couple of occasions this was just an older member of staff throwing their weight around. And a few times it was because I just hadn't done the job properly.
I always found the latter quite hard to deal with and would beat myself up thinking I would never find a proper job. Being a temp, you're often at the bottom of the heap and responsible for essential but very dull details. It's not that exciting but it's important you do rather boring stuff well. I nearly always tried my best, but it does seem a bit pointless, particularly if there's no permanent contract at the end of it.
Fast forward a few years, and I'm now in a relatively responsible job. A temp has been looking after my admin work when I was away.
She seems really nice, but her work has been, well, erratic. Basic stuff like reading and comprehending e-mails, and drafting coherent, accurate replies hasn't been great. And she seems clueless about how the organisation I work for actually operates, even on a basic, general knowledge sort of level.
I'd let things go and let things go. And hoped that when I delved into my inbox sent her re-written drafts of her letters, or let her know that that wasn't how we did things, that she'd twig that she really needed to pay a bit more attention to detail.
Except, she didn't. I was getting increasingly bitter about spending some of my maternity leave sorting her mistakes. In the end, she made another few mistakes that seemed to be mostly caused by just not paying attention; mostly ones that I could explain or apologise away, but one that was potentially quite serious. I queried the serious one today and she was apologetic and gave me her version of events. Then I'd discovered she'd either completely bullshitted me or just not understood something fairly basic. And then she got into a complete panic and everything to do with this particular matter went haywire, because in her haste to try and sort it out, she still didn't take in what I was asking her to do.
I so know that feeling.
But I could have ended up carrying the can for her general dizziness, so found myself having to speak to her boss. Who is going to have a word with her. I imagine she probably feels just as shit as I did in my early 20s when I stuffed up.
I feel bad. It's not helped that I haven't been around to field queries, although I don't understand why, when I've said to ask if she's not sure, she evidently hasn't. She's not a terrible person, she's just probably in that phase where you find out that work is less fulfilling than school and college would have you believe. But then, the sloppy grammar and the constant mistakes make me look sloppy, too. At the end of the day, she needs to do the job, even if it's not very exciting.
Feels weird being on the other side of the fence, though.
I always found the latter quite hard to deal with and would beat myself up thinking I would never find a proper job. Being a temp, you're often at the bottom of the heap and responsible for essential but very dull details. It's not that exciting but it's important you do rather boring stuff well. I nearly always tried my best, but it does seem a bit pointless, particularly if there's no permanent contract at the end of it.
Fast forward a few years, and I'm now in a relatively responsible job. A temp has been looking after my admin work when I was away.
She seems really nice, but her work has been, well, erratic. Basic stuff like reading and comprehending e-mails, and drafting coherent, accurate replies hasn't been great. And she seems clueless about how the organisation I work for actually operates, even on a basic, general knowledge sort of level.
I'd let things go and let things go. And hoped that when I delved into my inbox sent her re-written drafts of her letters, or let her know that that wasn't how we did things, that she'd twig that she really needed to pay a bit more attention to detail.
Except, she didn't. I was getting increasingly bitter about spending some of my maternity leave sorting her mistakes. In the end, she made another few mistakes that seemed to be mostly caused by just not paying attention; mostly ones that I could explain or apologise away, but one that was potentially quite serious. I queried the serious one today and she was apologetic and gave me her version of events. Then I'd discovered she'd either completely bullshitted me or just not understood something fairly basic. And then she got into a complete panic and everything to do with this particular matter went haywire, because in her haste to try and sort it out, she still didn't take in what I was asking her to do.
I so know that feeling.
But I could have ended up carrying the can for her general dizziness, so found myself having to speak to her boss. Who is going to have a word with her. I imagine she probably feels just as shit as I did in my early 20s when I stuffed up.
I feel bad. It's not helped that I haven't been around to field queries, although I don't understand why, when I've said to ask if she's not sure, she evidently hasn't. She's not a terrible person, she's just probably in that phase where you find out that work is less fulfilling than school and college would have you believe. But then, the sloppy grammar and the constant mistakes make me look sloppy, too. At the end of the day, she needs to do the job, even if it's not very exciting.
Feels weird being on the other side of the fence, though.
Monday, 24 September 2012
Alpha Mommies
I went to a council run baby group. I thought it might be nice to meet other new Mums. I was a bit nervous about going - just because it was a new group of people, and also because I'd spent such a long time actively avoiding normal, fertile women that I felt a bit like I was going to be out of place.
The first time I went was a little bit awkward, but I got chatting to someone else who was fairly new, and was really nice.
The next couple of times, she wasn't there, and it was a bit rum. It soon became apparent that all the other mums went for lunch with each other a couple of times a week after another parent group, and I felt a bit like the unpopular girl at school because no-one had said anything to me about it.
But, I told myself I was being really stupid, and that I shouldn't wait to be invited to things. Some of them had toddlers as well as babies and seemed to have been going to these groups for quite a long time, and were maybe just in a more comfortable groove with the whole parenting group thing and had forgotten than it was nice to make friends as a new parent.
So, after one of them had a long and loud conversation with how to promote the other parent group and how she was now running it, I politely asked her who the group was for and where it met
She was really evasive about who could come to the group, to the point that one of the health professionals who drop in to answer questions at the baby group must have realised what was going on and chipped in and said "Oh, that parent and child group? It's for everyone."
And then the group leader woman started telling everyone about how she had three kids and needed a place to store her personal birthing pool. And there was a lively conversation about how it was best to buy vastly expensive designer clothes for your baby so the babygros didn't get misshapen in the wash.
Uncharacteristically, I felt a bit bad about the whole thing. Like I was never going to fit in at any group, and that I was somehow a bad mother for kitting out DS in stuff from Tesco (I know, I know. I must have been having a bit of a low day - this sort of thing has never bothered me previously). And I didn't understand why the woman had been so obviously unwelcoming about the other parent group.
Until I bumped into one of my neighbours, who was telling me that he hated taking his toddler-age daughter to one of the groups because, when we went, it was all chat about breastfeeding and giving birth. And, of course, it transpired that this was the same parent group that I'd tried to find out about. And that his wife had been to the same group I had, but found them all very cliquey and hard to get on with.
So, it seems like Ive unfortunately run into bunch of women who have no outlet but to try and dominate baby and toddler groups, where they can sit around and stealth boast about how much money their families have, and try and exclude everyone not in their gang. How pathetic. I've stopped going to the original group, I think I've had a lucky escape with the second!
The first time I went was a little bit awkward, but I got chatting to someone else who was fairly new, and was really nice.
The next couple of times, she wasn't there, and it was a bit rum. It soon became apparent that all the other mums went for lunch with each other a couple of times a week after another parent group, and I felt a bit like the unpopular girl at school because no-one had said anything to me about it.
But, I told myself I was being really stupid, and that I shouldn't wait to be invited to things. Some of them had toddlers as well as babies and seemed to have been going to these groups for quite a long time, and were maybe just in a more comfortable groove with the whole parenting group thing and had forgotten than it was nice to make friends as a new parent.
So, after one of them had a long and loud conversation with how to promote the other parent group and how she was now running it, I politely asked her who the group was for and where it met
She was really evasive about who could come to the group, to the point that one of the health professionals who drop in to answer questions at the baby group must have realised what was going on and chipped in and said "Oh, that parent and child group? It's for everyone."
And then the group leader woman started telling everyone about how she had three kids and needed a place to store her personal birthing pool. And there was a lively conversation about how it was best to buy vastly expensive designer clothes for your baby so the babygros didn't get misshapen in the wash.
Uncharacteristically, I felt a bit bad about the whole thing. Like I was never going to fit in at any group, and that I was somehow a bad mother for kitting out DS in stuff from Tesco (I know, I know. I must have been having a bit of a low day - this sort of thing has never bothered me previously). And I didn't understand why the woman had been so obviously unwelcoming about the other parent group.
Until I bumped into one of my neighbours, who was telling me that he hated taking his toddler-age daughter to one of the groups because, when we went, it was all chat about breastfeeding and giving birth. And, of course, it transpired that this was the same parent group that I'd tried to find out about. And that his wife had been to the same group I had, but found them all very cliquey and hard to get on with.
So, it seems like Ive unfortunately run into bunch of women who have no outlet but to try and dominate baby and toddler groups, where they can sit around and stealth boast about how much money their families have, and try and exclude everyone not in their gang. How pathetic. I've stopped going to the original group, I think I've had a lucky escape with the second!
Saturday, 22 September 2012
A belated ICLW welcome
Aaaah! ICLW crept up on me when I didn't expect it!
This is a "parenting after" blog. I know this will automatically make some people not want to read on further. But it's not that bad, honestly...
I got pregnant after lots of IVF. I had a natural ectopic. Then I had an early miscarriage after IVF, which sent me a bit bonkers. Then I had two failed FETs, a FET that turned out to be another ectopic, another failed FET and then, on my last two frozen embryos, I got pregnant with the Boy. It took 18 months, more money than I care to think about, and a whole lot of feeling crappy. All the bloggers who started treatment at the same time seemed to be pregnant, my friends were popping kids out, pop pop pop pop.
I went through phases of reading stupid books, either with dubious theories about diet (one more or less said to cut out everything apart from lentils, or some similar bollocks) or New-Age-y belief systems - reiki, Tarot, reflexology and more. I have just chucked out my feng sui book out this afternoon; I still have a little wind chime hanging above the bathroom door, which I desperately hoped would stop my fertility chakras going down the toilet. Or something.
By the end, I believed in statistics. Namely, that if I kept doing IVF, then it would work eventually. And I also had a backup plan if the FETs entirely failed, which was to take a year off treatment and spend part of that time doing the Trans Siberian Express.
Anyway, Russia's vodka supplies remain untroubled. Numbers triumphed where meditation failed. Either that or the wind chime thing really did make a difference after all. And we got there in the end.
I did blog about all this as it happened but had to can the old place for work-related reasons. And, anyway, it made sense to have a fresh blog - about the Boy, about life, and about having no tubes.
This is a "parenting after" blog. I know this will automatically make some people not want to read on further. But it's not that bad, honestly...
I got pregnant after lots of IVF. I had a natural ectopic. Then I had an early miscarriage after IVF, which sent me a bit bonkers. Then I had two failed FETs, a FET that turned out to be another ectopic, another failed FET and then, on my last two frozen embryos, I got pregnant with the Boy. It took 18 months, more money than I care to think about, and a whole lot of feeling crappy. All the bloggers who started treatment at the same time seemed to be pregnant, my friends were popping kids out, pop pop pop pop.
I went through phases of reading stupid books, either with dubious theories about diet (one more or less said to cut out everything apart from lentils, or some similar bollocks) or New-Age-y belief systems - reiki, Tarot, reflexology and more. I have just chucked out my feng sui book out this afternoon; I still have a little wind chime hanging above the bathroom door, which I desperately hoped would stop my fertility chakras going down the toilet. Or something.
By the end, I believed in statistics. Namely, that if I kept doing IVF, then it would work eventually. And I also had a backup plan if the FETs entirely failed, which was to take a year off treatment and spend part of that time doing the Trans Siberian Express.
Anyway, Russia's vodka supplies remain untroubled. Numbers triumphed where meditation failed. Either that or the wind chime thing really did make a difference after all. And we got there in the end.
I did blog about all this as it happened but had to can the old place for work-related reasons. And, anyway, it made sense to have a fresh blog - about the Boy, about life, and about having no tubes.
Sunday, 16 September 2012
Night owl
The Boy usually starts his day at 5.30am - he gets a feed, goes back to sleep while I pump, then wakes properly at about 7.
Tonight, he has woken at 3.30. His teeth are bothering him. I have given him Calpol and fed him, and now there is left to pump. The frustrating bit is that he's still trying to fight sleep, and I'm hoping he isn't going to wake up at 5. His father starts a new job tomorrow and I've got much to do, so the timing is not great.
I nearly posting a Facebook status saying "Bloody teeth!" or similar. Then I remembered how much reading that sort of thing cut me like a knife when I was going through IVF and recovering from losses.
So, on one level it's pretty frustrating, spending ages trying to get him to sleep. I can hear him chuntering away to himself, even now, and I think there might be more waking to come.
On the other hand, having to get up at 3am to look after him is an enormous privilege.
Tonight, he has woken at 3.30. His teeth are bothering him. I have given him Calpol and fed him, and now there is left to pump. The frustrating bit is that he's still trying to fight sleep, and I'm hoping he isn't going to wake up at 5. His father starts a new job tomorrow and I've got much to do, so the timing is not great.
I nearly posting a Facebook status saying "Bloody teeth!" or similar. Then I remembered how much reading that sort of thing cut me like a knife when I was going through IVF and recovering from losses.
So, on one level it's pretty frustrating, spending ages trying to get him to sleep. I can hear him chuntering away to himself, even now, and I think there might be more waking to come.
On the other hand, having to get up at 3am to look after him is an enormous privilege.
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