The new rolling ILX parenting thread, since the other one was getting unwieldy

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inducing on friday if nothing happens in the meantime. id rather wait but doc says my blood pressure has gone crazy since last week. well, its plenty higher, anyways. pleasant plains is pleased because march 2nd is the date he was pulling for. its definitely nice to see an end in sight.

― sunny successor, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

That's Texas Independance Day! (perhaps that will please him less?)

yay for impending birth! are you nervous?

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 14:34 (seventeen years ago) link

UH OH!! dont tell him that!

i am in so much denial right now im not nervous at all. its like part of my brain is all 'oh friday 6 months from now, right? '

thursday night may be a different story!

― sunny successor, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 14:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Hope everything goes well! Hope you don't have to wait until friday!

Archel, those photos are just too cute!

― Vicky, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:15 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, I know it's a bit decadent, but I do want to give my children their own space. We have the ability, so why not?

so are you gonna find out the gender this time? and are you gonna tell us? ;)

you'll probabmy have to delete itagain. ;-)

― nathalie, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:22 (seventeen years ago) link

We have the ability, so why not?

they might enjoy each other's company?

when they get older and truly need privacy, yes being able to give them their own rooms is awesome.

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Alice and dad both look so blissed out :)

― Jaq, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Welcome Howie! I also had back labor with Rufus - ouch! I had a scheduled C-section with Cyrus, so no labor at all the second time.

I had virtually no morning sickness with my boys. They've been sleeping in one room now because Cyrus doesn't want to go in his crib anymore. When we build the new house, we'll probably get bunk beds. They like sharing space. They're pals; we're lucky.

― Maria :D, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh god, now you are all making me feel guilty! I already apologized to my mom saying she was probably right. Maybe it's because I think like an adult and figure they'd like their own little space? Maybe silly. How do I convince my husband this?

― nathalie, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link

haha, like not googling on morning sickness, you probably shouldn't let people on the interweb make you feel guilty. ;)

― Ms Misery, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link

oh thanks for the update SS! I was about to ask, I knew it was coming up. I think my blood pressure went weird at the end too, it certainly did once they started giving me the drugs. They do so much mom/baby monitoring it's crazy, just remember that just because you have some sign of something wrong doesn't really mean much, it almost always turns out to be nothing.

― teeny, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, those pics are so adorable!!!!

― nathalie, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

YAY HOWIE!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been using photobucket.com for pics, Meg, it's very easy. LET'S SEE HIM!!!! And his tired mama!

― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 18:35 (seventeen years ago) link

teeny, its totally weird to have high blood pressure because mine is usually really low. did it make you feel hot all of the time? i feel like im radiating heat.

did anyone here do the cord blood stem cell banking thing? im considering it since most of my family has had cancer at some point.

― sunny successor, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 18:40 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah I was hot, I usu run cold. glad I had it in winter. I have no knowledge of cord blood banking other than it's pricey. :(

― teeny, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 21:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Bumping this in advance of poss news...just have a feeling!

― teeny, Friday, 2 March 2007 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link

soon you will have more primary-colored plastic shit in your house than you ever thought imaginable.

― teeny, Friday, 2 March 2007 13:43 (seventeen years ago) link

Blimey, where have the last six days gone? All is well with little H - we are starting to get to grips with the feeding / changing / burping / cuddling routine, and he even let us have about 6 hours' sleep last night (only interrupted twice for feeding and changing) - just as well cause I was starting to get a bit delerious with sleep deprivation. My milk has come in now, which seems to have made it much easier to settle him - luckily he has taken to breastfeeding with no great problems so far (apart from waking up this morning with boobs like great big bags of marbles).

I love him so much!

Re: photos, I'm not very keen on posting pics on public websites, but will have a look at Photobucket and see if I can get something up briefly for y'all to look at.

Oh, and good thoughts for Sunny today! So relieved I went into labour before having to be induced.

― Meg Busset, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:20 (seventeen years ago) link

BEEPS

― gbx, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Glad to hear Howie is doing well and the love and milk are aflowin'! Meg, you could always start a flickr account and make photos only visible to friends - ie all of us lot ;)

Come on Beeps!

― Archel, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Sounds like things are going well so far Meg. Can you and your partner take turns taking care of Howie while you each catch long naps?

Also remembering the rock hard breast feeling... not fun. I woke up in puddles of milk for a while. A nurse helped me with the rock hard breasts by putting hot wash cloths on them and then putting disposable diapers over them to keep the heat in. Then I nursed or expressed after that and got a lot of the "excess" milk out. Taking a warm bath would probably produce the same effect. It does all even out eventually (thankfully!).

― Sara R-C, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Expressing milk is not a good idea, unless you want to alleviate the pain a little, which is what I did. But expressing milk is actually sending a message to your breast to make more milk. Just saying, I don't mean you did wrong, Sara, only that I know some women who did this.

I too awoke in puddles of milk. hah. Very funny but the rockhard breasts are no fun.

Morning sickness has arrived. Boo (in a way).

Today Ophelia went for the first time to daycare. It's a posh place, but very kidfriendly. And parentfriendly as well. She did exceptionally well! I was in tears when I called my husband asking how things went. He had dropped her off as we suspected that me doing it could create problems. We only sent her half a day as we didn't want to overdo it. On monday again. We only do it twice a week. Hopefully she'll do as well as she did today. :-)

― nathalie, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Nathalie, you are absolutely right - it is a feedback loop that could keep you overproducing milk. What was happening to me was that my breast tissues were so swollen that the milk that was there wasn't coming out well, despite my using a hospital grade pump (Alex was a preemie and couldn't nurse much). After that first time of using heat, I was able to express a bunch of "extra" milk and then it wasn't such a problem.

Possibly the best thing to do would be to just apply some heat before nursing Howie; then you're not going to get overproduction.

(As for the puddles, I just took to throwing towels down when I went to bed because it kept up for a few weeks.)

Ugh on the morning sickness - so sorry to hear it. Awesome news about the first day of daycare going well. (I hope somehow this means you get a nap out of the deal...)

― Sara R-C, Friday, 2 March 2007 16:54 (seventeen years ago) link

First day at daycare. Result: she has a cold. I'm gonna beat that kid who gave it to her UP. ;-)
She had her molars whilst battling this cold. Result: a very sleepless night for everyone involved.

― nathalie, Monday, 5 March 2007 06:37 (seventeen years ago) link

H had his 10-day check-up today and all's well - jaundice has cleared, he's got a lovely pink belly button where his stump was until two days ago, and he has put on nearly a pound in four days (!).

We also seem to have slipped into a half-decent sleeping routine whereby we start to get him ready for bed around midnight (when we're ready for bed ourselves), he falls asleep by 1, wakes at 4.30 for a quick feed and change then goes back to sleep til 7.30. This morning he even gave us an extra lie-in of an hour after his 7.30 feed. I am vaguely inclined to try to get him to bed earlier in the evening (since my friend told me her 6-week-old happily goes to bed at 7pm!) but am reluctant to mess with the current system as I feel very fortunate to be getting 6 hours' sleep a night at this point. Anyone got any thoughts on this?

― Meg Busset, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:20 (seventeen years ago) link

If you're getting some sleep with a newborn you are indeed fortunate! What a good boy!

― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Congratulations new babies and new mums n dads!

Meg: as ppl said to me upthread when I asked a similar qn, count your blessings! Ours now (at 3 months)has a regular pattern of sleeping at 10PM, waking at 6 or 7 for a short feed, then back to sleep for another 2-3 hours, and then nothing during the day bar the odd 10-minute naplet. We don't really want to move him back earlier - I really like coming home and seeing and playing with him, and my wife likes the extra morning sleep.

He is at his second swimming lesson, or splashing lesson or whatever you call it.

It's fun how they seem to try and "level up" different skills at different times - two weeks ago it was all about intense concentration on his hands and accurately touching stuff in front of him, and he'd hardly pay our voices any attention, then this week he's working on locating sounds and depth perception and its starey stary head turney all the time with his hands politely by his sides. He also has developed a happy but ear-splitting squawk which is louder than his unhappy cry or howl.

― Groke, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:42 (seventeen years ago) link

When we build the new house, we'll probably get bunk beds. They like sharing space. They're pals; we're lucky.

Maria, one of my regrets in our other house was that we built it assuming that the boys would share a room. A room for each, no matter how small, is preferable, I think. Tucker ended up moving out of the shared bedroom—not because they weren't getting along, but because Nigel was so much sloppier than him. He moved into that tiny tower room, which had no door and was freezing in the winter. We were paying HUGE eliectric bills so that he could run a space heater.
Don't forget, they're going to still be there as young men—home from college, home on holidays with girlfriends, spending time there between rentals, if they end up staying on the Vineyard (it DOES happen!) etc. So even if they like sharing a room now, I strongly advise building a room for each—big enough for a double bed, a bureau and a bookcase. Maybe a chair. Anything else is wasted space. Check out our guest room—it has all of the above, and it's a bit smaller than 8 by 12, not counting the closet.

― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Tallulah's sleeping pattern at the moment is very similar to Lytton's - and it's fine by me, as I love the easy engagement with her after work and after the trauma of putting Ava to bed.

She's much less active than Ava was at the same age (we have a pic on Flickr of Ava jamming her feet in her mouth post-bath at 14 weeks; Lulu* is now 17 weeks and the idea of her even being able to get those tree-trunk legs more than an inch off the floor is laughable) but I guess a lot of that is down to her being a much bigger baby (4lb 10oz at birth to 14lb in under four months) and her not getting as much interaction with Mum and Dad during the day. The wild'n'crazy 2-y-o does tend to demand all your attention.

(* - Pam's pet name for her and Ava's too, so I've just gone with it; very crafty by Pam, as Lulu was one of her favoured names that I nixed)

Lulu chuckles and yelps and coos but there are no discernable vowel sounds yet. She's much readier with a smile than her sister was; Ava would hold your gaze, seemingly fascinated, checking out your hair, your eyes, but Lulu just smiles and laughs every time you lock eyes with her. I doubt she'll be crawling at 7.5 months and walking at 10 like big sis.

Our evening routine with Ava has totally broken down for the moment but we're about to impose a new, better one. For the first 6-7 weeks after Xmas, everything was great - bath with Dad, brushy brush teeth and spit out the yuck (copyright Bing Bunny), singsong on the bed as I changed her into her pyjamas and then bed without a problem. No way is that working any more. However, the nursery (after 13 months!) is nearing completion and soon she'll be in her first proper bed, surrounded by her toys and books in a room of her own. I'm sure the transition will be hell for a few weeks but she's totally ready for the bed experience, I reckon.

Latest Ava crazes: singing everyone's name to the tune of Fireman Sam, counting to 20 but with the teens in a quasi-random order, blowing kisses.

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:02 (seventeen years ago) link

Shall I post pictures? It's been a couple of weeks...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/409271311_7e49eae1ab.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/125/409271301_d086f01e35.jpg

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh wow, it's so fascinating reading about other babies' development, habits etc!

Alice currently goes to bed about 7.30-8pm (obligingly falling asleep almost immediately she clocks the combo of bedroom, swaddling, darkness, and soft music) and then doesn't wake until about 3am. She doesn't settle well after the 3am feed, but usually has another 3 or 4 hours sleep once she does. 7 hours + 4 hours is of course FANTASTIC, but we are trying to edge last feed/bedtime later so that her 7 hour stretch coincides a bit better with ours.

She's not a smiley baby by any stretch of the imagination, preferring a look of intense concentration/suspicion. But she will stare raptly at colours, lights and her hands for ages, and has started to really fight sleep during the day in favour of looking around her - unfortunately this soon makes her outrageously overtired and she screams madly until we can persuade her to sleep through intensive dummy-rocking-shushing sessions.

― Archel, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Ava's EYES! Michael you must resist the temptation to make huge amounts of money from her beauty so that you never have to work another day in your life. It would be wrong.
Sicilians believe that if you go on and on about a child's beauty, it attracts THE EVIL EYE. So I'll stop.

― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Lytton is very smiley but there's usually an (extremely adorable) moment of narrowed-eye wariness before you get the smile, a "hey hold on you don't fool me - oh ok then!" moment. (I project, but who doesn't). The only thing which gets a guaranteed first-time smile is a rattle from his blue bird after he's been changed.

Very little seems to upset him - lack of food, discomfort, but other than that he takes everything remarkably in stride.

― Groke, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Mummy morning sick and battling a cold, Ophelia also with a cold: BLERGH. I feel extremy utterly awfully CRAP.

― nathalie, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, Tallulah's amazingly resilient too - I mean, Ava is fairly brutal in her expressions of affection. Perhaps one time in every three or four she'll heed our instructions to be "gentle, soft" but usually she's headbutting her, trying to pull her off the couch, slapping her hands, sticking her fingers in her eyes, all the while cooing "Aw, baby Yuyu. Kiss baby Yuyu." Tallulah generally copes with it, unless Ava actually draws blood. Babies are tough! They should build planes out of whatever babies are made of.

Archel: Lulu needed her 3am feed until 9 weeks or so, and after that she started sleeping through - Alice could be the same (as if any two babes are ever the same). It was really hard for us at the time as we'd been spoiled with Ava sleeping through from something ridiculous like day 8 and weren't quite prepared; Ava was also going through a poor sleeping phase. We'd have both of them in the bed at 4am with work the next day...

(Pam took the pics above, btw - credit where it's due).

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Sorry to hear that, Nathalie; kids just don't allow you to be ill, do they? I've had a bacterial chest infection and I'm still not fully over it after a month - it's because "rest" is a foreign concept now.

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Owen:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/125/409181303_edc6bc07df.jpg

Ben and Owen
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/158/401125259_9efb349b15.jpg

― schwantz, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Awww! That second pic is like those Greek comedy/tragedy masks :)

― Archel, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Luscious!

― Beth Parker, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh God, they're adorable.

Sometimes, sometimes, I wonder what it might've been like to have a boy...

― Michael Jones, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:12 (seventeen years ago) link

As one of two sisters, I can say confidently that you have the best combo M :)

― Archel, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:51 (seventeen years ago) link

schwantz, i was seriously thinking about you and the babies, wondering how everything was. so tell us, please, if you don't mind,how things are going? is he handling the medication pretty well and how are the strokes (?).

ophelia's coping quite well and doesn't really *bother* me that much. but boy oh boy am i morning sick. and the cold isn't a fullfledged one, in teh sense that you actually SEE me having a cold, so it's like i'm just moaning for nothing. as they say (but not in front of the kids, so cover their ears): BUGGAH.

ophelia's been standing indie style and doing little steps. it's so darn cute!

the funniest thing, someone in my knitting class opinionated that boys are closer to their mums than daughters. as a girl i was so attached to my mother, you didn't need any superglue to make me and my mum any tighter. i find the whole concept "boys are... than girls..." just ridiculous, really. but do say i'm wrong if you like and regale me with tales of your sister not being attached to your mom....

if my english comes out all weird: see above about cold and morning sickness.

― nathalie, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 08:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, I didn't really want to bum out the thread with tales of seizures and hospitals, so I haven't posted in a while. However, it hasn't really been that bad. Ben has had a couple of seizure spells. We have put him on some anti-convulsive meds (Keppra), which are still getting dialed in. He hasn't had any spells for about a week and a half, but that is about the normal inter-cluster time period, so we are crossing our fingers that he doesn't have any more for a few weeks, at least, so we know the meds are actually working. If this happens, then it pretty much rules out any of the really scary, intractable seizure disorders (go ahead and Google "partial focal seizures" if you want to see where my head was at a couple weeks ago). Also, his development seems to be on-track, so we're pretty hopeful that these spells will pass in a year or two (or less). We took him for an MRI yesterday, which was stressful in its own way, since they had to put him under in order to keep him still. We find out the results today. The most probable result is that they will find nothing, which is actually, statistically, the best option (it means that the spells have a better chance of going away on their own). If they find something small, then it will at least let us know what is actually going on (and rule out some of the scary shit). They probably won't find anything macroscopic, as they would have seen that stuff on the ultrasound they did of his head a couple weeks ago (you can ultrasound a baby's head through the soft spot!).

On the bright side, like I mentioned, his development seems to be on-track. Physically, he is a tiny bit behind his brother, but he was born a little smaller, and has always been a bit more verbal than Owen. He smiles and talks all the time, and is pretty strong.

Owen, I just found out, rolled over for the first (and then second, third, fourth, and fifth) time this morning, from his back to his front (ooo - adVANced!), trying to get across the crib to his brother. So that's exciting! Bummer that I have to hear about this stuff through email, but then, someone has to work, right?

Do any of the parents of slightly older children feel like your constant nervousness about your children ever subsides a bit? I can hear you laughing through the screen, but I'm serious. It seems like when they are infants, there is this fear that they will just freaking DIE randomly. Does this go away at all, or does you just get used to it?

― schwantz, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Beeps is in a crib in our room. When she fusses, I worry, and when she stops fussing, I worry. I hear that it's completely par for the course to feel this way.

I do a sports report daily at my job. If I'm ever late or we get an intern to do it for training, I get a phone call at 12:31 from my Dad going, "WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU OKAY?" It's annoying, I don't condone it, and I hope that I'm not doing that when Beeps is 33 years-old, but I now sort of understand it.

I hope everything works out for Ben. So often, you read about someone and find out that they were born with some incredible handicap or were eight months early or something, and look how they turned out! We'll continue to hope for the best from this end.

― Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 17:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Does this go away at all, or does you just get used to it?

Not really, not for me. Mine are each in their mid-20s and I still get panicky when I don't hear from them (they both live far from me) and I have occasional horrible nightmares of BAD THINGS happening to them. I have however, in the past 2 or 3 years, trained myself to stop phoning and emailing them constantly. Now I just take my panic out on Mr. Jaq. Everyone should call their parents right NOW and tell them things are fine.

I'm glad things are getting under control for Ben - both your boys are so darned cute!

― Jaq, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 17:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I have a knot of anxiety in my gut over my adult kids. It never goes away, but it lies dormant most of the time. Different things will activate it, like if one of them has a rough patch with a girlfriend, or gets speeding tickets. I went to the funeral of one of my younger son's classmates on Sunday. Car crash.

― Beth Parker, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link

One more pic:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/187/413103206_ea65866782.jpg

Also, if you want to check out a whole ton of pics, check out my twins Flickr set

― schwantz, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

OMG they are adorable. Crossing my fingers that the meds are working for Ben and that the seizures will disappear on their own.

I still freak out some about my 8 and 4 year old kids, but I no longer fear that they will just die. I'm more worried that they will blithely walk out in front of a car (especially J., who is not only younger, but also fearless). Mostly I don't let myself contemplate bad things happening to them, though, because it's just too scary.

― Sara R-C, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link

So we found out what Ben has is a mild version of Focal Cortical Dysplasia (don't Google it or you'll get freaked out), emphasis on "mild." This is one of the most common causes of seizures in kids. Our neurologist seemed to think she was delivering relatively good news, and told us that this rules out any of the really scary seizure syndromes. According to her, the effects of this could range from nothing, with the seizures disappearing within a year or two, to possibly some mild learning disabilities. Apparently many people have FCD and don't even know it.

Again, if you Google it, you will get a menu of frightening possibilities. It sounds like the version Ben has is very mild, and should be controllable with the meds, etc.

― schwantz, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Finally some hard information for you. Ben certainly doesn't look too worried!
Of course we're all going to Google it anyway. Who do you think you're talking to?

― Beth Parker, Thursday, 8 March 2007 00:03 (seventeen years ago) link

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