Turkey and Broccoli with Lemon Rice

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 1/2 cup diced cooked turkey
• 1/2 cup steamed broccoli, finely minced
• lemon olive oil (you can use plain, too)
• salt
• pepper

Stir rice, turkey, and broccoli together. Heat in microwave until warm. Drizzle generously with olive oil, and add one small dash of pepper and a bit of salt to taste.

Jamieson loved this. And it was delicious enough that I’m going to make it for the big people in the household next time, too; maybe adding a few Katamala olives.

For dessert he had about 1/2 cup of fresh local blueberries. I wasn’t sure he’d eat them so I only gave him a few at a time (I didn’t want a carpet full of purple stains), but he kept asking for more.

In non-food-related news, we were playing with his wooden cars this morning and as soon as I stopped, he looked at me and said, “More vrooom!”

Jamie’s newest words are:

• “Bello” (for Jello)
• and “e-i-e-i-0″ (very clearly enunciated, super cute)

Doc and I got to go out on an actual date last weekend, thanks to the generous babysitting talents of Kathryn and Brett. We intended to go see “Inception,” since we know someone who worked on the movie (and plus it just looks interesting), but our show was sold out when we arrived. Knowing that we had a limited timeframe to be out on the town, we chose another movie that started around the same time, “Dinner for Schmucks.” Not something we had intended to see in the theatre, but it was funny at times and moderately charming, and at this point I am so starved for movies that it almost doesn’t matter what I go see. It was just nice to be out on a date with my wonderful husband.

Beginning July 30, we had 26 days in a row of heat over 100 degrees. The official recorded temperature was 99 on a couple of those days, but it is always hotter at our house than out at the airport where they record the official numbers. Last weekend was just the worst; the analog thermometer on our back patio registered 108 on both days. Thankfully Jamieson has not seemed to want to go outside as much as usual lately. He’ll look out the windows to the patio and say “HOT.” On Sunday afternoon I filled up his wading pool and let him swim for a while. He also ate a couple of big slices of cold watermelon, perfect for a hot day.

Yesterday the  highest temperature I saw all day was 77 degrees (I was so excited that I checked every hour or so). That’s lower than we’ve had most nights this month.

Anyway, I don’t expect it to last, but it has been a very nice break from living on the face of the sun.

Well, well, well.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever see the day that this happened, but it finally has.

Lord Emperor Toddler, age 20-1/2 months, has SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT! Indeed, five out of the last six nights, he has slept all the way from bedtime (8:30-ish) until 7 or 7:30 in the morning. Occasionally he will cry out for a minute or two, but I can tell by how the cries sound that he’s not actually awake. He quiets down after a minute or two and settles back to sleep.

This happened eleven days after we began the process of weaning him from the first of his two night feedings. We always gave him his second bottle when he woke up for it. I guess he just decided that it wasn’t worth waking up for it anymore. Who knows what went through his little brain, consciously or subconsciously. Maybe he realized that he felt better when he got a long stretch of sleep, and he began to get comfortable knowing that daddy always comes in first thing in the morning with a cup of milk and some banana slices and cereal, so he won’t be hungry.

We had been looking forward to this day for such a long time, with such longing and anticipation, and it even became a running joke between Doc and I (“I know we said this last night, but tonight is actually the night he’s going to sleep through the night.”). Eventually there came a point when I internally gave up thinking/wishing/pining for a full night’s sleep for both he and I, because it never ever happened, and I had learned to get by pretty well with the routine we were in.

And when it happened, I was way less excited than I ever thought I’d be. Angels did not sing, golden light did not shine from above, I did not spring forth from my bed fully rested and ready to take on the world. Which was TOTALLY not the reaction I was expecting from myself.

I guess the potential excitement of that moment had been dulled by months of … well, drudgery is not the right word, but just months of a 2x/night waking schedule with no real signs of Jamie changing it up on his own. And of course, we had to be 100% certain that he would be getting all the nutrition he needs during his waking hours before we pulled the ripcord on the night feedings, so we chose to let it continue for a very long time, WAY longer than I think most people would. But I honestly don’t think that any of us would have been successful with this process even a few months ago.

As I am constantly reminded… every kid is different.

We have had nine nights so far of weaning Jamie from one of his night-time feedings. Overall it’s going well. I went into great detail about the first four nights in a previous post, and I won’t bore anyone with vast amounts of detail here. Suffice it to say, some nights have been fantastic, with one waking between 1:30 and 3:30 for a super-easy, roll-right-over-and-go-back-to-sleep kind of feeding. Other nights have been more difficult with multiple wakings and difficulties getting Jamie soothed back to sleep.

But like I said, overall it’s going very well. It’s going to take time for him to completely settle into this new routine (and of course we are going to yank feeding #2 at some point soon too), and I have to say that I am very impressed by how much patience we, as his parents, are exhibiting throughout this process. We’re both remaining very zen about the whole thing, and focused on the long term. I suppose that’s one benefit to being “older” parents: higher patience levels.

Jamieson doesn’t seem to be any the worse for wear during this process. He doesn’t appear to be more upset than normal during the days, or dreading bedtime or anything of the sort. Getting longer stretches of sleep may be doing him good.

His allergist suggested we take him down to 1/2 his previous dosage of his medication, but he seemed to be a little more uncomfortable at that dosage, so we’ve taken him back to the normal amount. We’ll try the half dosage again in a month or two and see how it goes then.

In other news, he doesn’t seem to dig fake mustaches.

Jamie used another two-word phrase the other day: “Mama, more.” He’s very cooperative when we’re trying to get him to verbalize some of his signs. “More” comes out sounding like “moahhhh.” Too cute.

Oh – so this was kinda crazy. We were at Wendy’s for dinner the other night (don’t judge) and Doc was holding Jamieson as we waited in line to order. Right next to us was a signboard advertising some sort of apple chicken almond salad or something of that nature. Jamieson leaned over, touched the word “apple” and said, plain as day, “apple.” There were no picture of apples on the board. Some of his storybooks have the word apple in them, associated with a picture, so I guess that he recognized the shape of the word. I was quite amazed by this. I’m not operating under the illusion that our baby can read, but he’s definitely beginning to remember and recognize words he’s seen before.

In other news, we began weaning him from his night feedings on Sunday. As an aside, I hate the word “wean.” It sounds like cold and moist and just icky. Wean. Wean. Weeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaan.

Anyway. We decided to take this plan in stages. His normal routine is to wake around 11 p.m. for Feeding #1, and around 3 a.m. for Feeding #2. We are beginning by cutting out Feeding #1.

Many people like and employ the Ferber method, commonly known as cry-it-out. We are not fans of this technique. I know that it is fast and effective for a lot of people, but we are not comfortable leaving Jamie alone and frightened to cry himself back to sleep. So we came up with our own modified plan. We will not feed him when he wakes the first time, but we will stay with him, comfort him, and hold him if necessary until he calms down and goes back to sleep (which, hopefully, he will do). If he wakes again after 3 a.m., this counts as Feeding #2 and he can have milk at that point.

The first night was rather brutal. Doc went in at 10:45 when Jamie woke up for Feeding #1 (or should I say, Nonfeeding #1), and rather than handing him a bottle of soymilk like usual, he just gave him back the binky. Fury ensued, the binky was violently spit out and “ay-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi” style wailing began. Fury continued, broken by short periods of nearly-asleepedness, for somewhat close to two hours before Jamie finally fell back asleep soundly enough for Doc to leave the room. Two hours of Jamie fury is pretty intense, especially because his fury level would intensify whenever Doc tried to sit in the rocking chair with him. So, two hours of standing. Not good times.

He woke again around 2:15. I steeled myself and entered the war zone, armed with a bottle of soymilk, fully expecting him to be furious about what had happened earlier. He took the bottle, drank 3/4 of it, and rolled over and went right back to sleep. I guess he was too worn out to be angry.

Night #2 was different. He slept through Nonfeeding #1, woke at 3:15 for Feeding #2, and it went quickly and easily.

Night #3 was different yet again. He woke for Nonfeeding #1, and cried angrily for about 15 minutes when I didn’t produce a bottle. I kept trying to give him his binky but he’d slap it out of my hands and sob. I laid quietly next to his bed with my arm up over the side so he knew I was there. After the furious crying subsided, he half-heartedly fussed for another 10 minutes or so, in sort of a “Hey, I’m crying here! Anyone? Helloooo?” manner. Then he quieted down, fidgeted around in his bed for about 30-40 minutes, and fell asleep. He stayed in bed the entire time and didn’t ask to be picked up.

Night #4 (last night) went smoothly, with a strange twist at the end. Nonfeeding #1 only took about 10 minutes for Doc, and didn’t involve much crying at all. Feeding #2 happened at about 5 a.m. when I heard him quietly sigh on the baby monitor. He wasn’t moving much so I thought I could sneak in there for a “pre-emptive strike,” since it’s always touch and go after about 4:30 a.m. as far as how awake he’s going to be. If he didn’t wake up much, he might go back to sleep easily. Unfortunately, he decided that he was wide awake after he drank his milk. I was like, uh-uh, mommy don’t play that 5 a.m. game anymore. I laid quietly by his crib hoping he’d drift back off to sleep, but after about 40 minutes of him tossing around in bed, babbling, and thumping his legs against the crib slats, it was clear to me that it wasn’t going to happen. And then he suddenly got very very quiet.

I cracked open my eyes and looked up to find him standing RIGHT OVER ME staring at me. EEEEEK! Freaked me out. He was so silent getting out of bed! How long had he been staring at me?! Anyway, as soon as he saw me open my eyes, he smiled and put his head down on my arm and snuggled up tight next to me. That was heartbreakingly cute but it lasted for all of about 10 seconds before he got up again and made a move for his toy shelf.

By this time I had to pee really bad, so I decided that rather than take him with me to the bathroom, which would basically guarantee that we were both up for the day, I would put him back in bed, shut his door, use the bathroom, and then come back and try to drift into half-sleep on his floor while he played with his toys for a while. So I laid him back down in bed and left the room. As you might imagine, this was not well-received. He began to cry, but not quite as loudly as I was expecting. I took care of my business, all the while watching him on the video baby monitor. By the time I was ready to  head back to his room, he had stopped crying, laid down in bed, and wasn’t moving anymore. So I went back to my own bed, watched the monitor for a bit, and then went back to sleep!

He didn’t wake up again until 7:45 when we woke him up so I could see him before I left for work.

Crazy times. I wonder what tonight will bring.

This morning when Jamie signed “more” (asking me to get more blocks out of the bin), I told him “say it with your mouth.” And he did! It sounded quite a bit like his versions of “moo” and “meow,” but he’s not even 20 months, I’m not being too picky about diction right now. So I guess that’s his newest word: more.

He visited his gastroenterologist, Dr. Whitney, today. She was pleased with his progress and told us that it’s definitely time to cut out the night feedings. Dr. W feels that he’s waking up entirely out of habit now, not because he’s truly hungry. Between solid food, soy formula, and his vitamins, he’ll get plenty of nutrients during the daylight hours, and will also begin to increase his caloric intake. I couldn’t help myself, I began laughing and said to Jamie, “Sorry, buddy, Dr. Whitney is no longer on your side!” Doc and I are going to come up with our plan of action for tackling this tough task this weekend. I’m not looking forward to The Big Wean, but maybe it’ll be less traumatic (for all of us) than I fear.

Here are some recent photos:

Jamieson’s eyeteeth (canines) have started coming in. He had a very difficult time getting to sleep last night, and a tough time staying asleep. We gave him Tylenol and ibuprofen throughout the night, but it didn’t seem to help much. I looked this morning and his top right canine is almost poked through the surface. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer. He’s definitely getting better at handling the emerging of his teeth.

All the better to eat you with

Jamie saw his allergist yesterday, and Doc said it was a great visit.

First and foremost, our child weighs 33 pounds now. 33! That’s like 1/4 of what I weigh!! (In my dreams)

But — he is by no means fat. I mean, look at him. He’s a very slender little boy, and the doctor said he’s actually on the lean side of normal for his height. I tell you, though, lifting and carrying 33 pounds around all the time is wreaking havoc on my back and shoulders. I try my best to keep good posture but it’s not easy. I’d let him walk more when we’re out in public, but he’s still young enough that he’s very prone to just take off without a backwards glance.

Anyway, he’s doing very well on his new medication (Flovent, an inhaled asthma medication that he actually swallows rather than inhales). He feels pretty good most of the time these days, and he’s sleeping VERY well. It also could be partly his growing maturity that he’s better able to deal with it when he doesn’t feel well. We’re keeping him on this medication for another three months — but at half the previous dosage — and will then evaluate whether to try taking him off of it.

Also at the end of three months, we are going to try giving him chicken. The allergist felt that this was probably a good way to start reintroducing his suspected allergens. Chicken is probably the least potent of them; peanuts are probably the most potent. We likely won’t try peanuts until he is at least 5.

And we’ll continue the night feedings for a while, probably.

I like having a plan.

Jamie’s new word for the weekend: apple.

His current favorite Jamie-language word: dippa-deeeeee.

We’re transitioning him now from bottles to sippy cups during the day. He’s not drinking as much milk from them as he will from a bottle, but the goal is to get him used to the idea that milk is only available by sippy cup now. Hopefully he’ll up his intake at some point soon. He has taken juice and water from a sippy for months now, but he only wanted milk if it was in a bottle. And overnight, of course, he drinks from a bottle. We also plan to wean him from night feedings soon. THAT will not be fun.

It turns out that he really digs V8. Go figure! So we get the low sodium kind and he drinks it from a sippy or a straw or even from a big boy cup with assistance. I can’t think of a downside to him liking tomato vegetable juice. We also get the V8 or Motts brand fruit/veg juice blends — they taste like regular fruit juice and I’d much rather he drink that and get those extra nutrients than just drink plain apple juice.

Jamie can now say and sign many words. Spoken words include:

• Mama
• Daddy
• Ham
• Hi
• Baby
• Nine
• No
• Papa
• Yeah
• Hi-ya! (Karate style)
• Uh-oh

Sign language words include:

• More
• Eat
• Cookie
• Drink
• Help
• Hurt
• Please
• Thank you
• Hi
• Bye
• Friend
• Stop
• Go

He’s signed a couple of two-word phrases so far: “stop story” (he was tired and wanted to go to bed) and “more please” (asking for more jello).

He also can recognize many letters and numbers and point to them when asked. I would say he now knows at least 70% of them. I think that’s pretty unusual for a 1-1/2 year old.

Doc and I have realized lately that we are starting to forget things. We are starting to forget how bad it used to be when Jamie was small, how difficult and impossible it seemed. Not that we want to dwell on the negatives about the past, but we think it’s important for us to remember how hard we worked to get where we are, and that we should be quite proud of ourselves for everything we have accomplished.

So a few things that we want to remember are:

• Jamie never used to be able to sleep lying down flat. For the first several months of his life we had to pretty much hold him upright at all times, even while he slept. At night, we put him in a co-sleeper on my side of the bed and he would wake up literally every two to five minutes and need soothing. I timed it.
• Doc spent a ton of time with Jamie downstairs while I tried to get a little sleep in the bedroom upstairs. We had the pack & play set up next to the sofa and he’d sleep in that — or try to. Doc would sit on the sofa and work or read or watch television, with Jamie right next to him so he could be available within microseconds if Jamie began to cry. Eventually we jacked one end of the pack and play up on blocks so that Jamie would be lying at an angle instead of flat. We thought that might help his tummy problems.
• We kept him wrapped a LOT of the time. He had to be swaddled while he slept or his arms and legs would jerk involuntarily and wake him up. His startle reflex was strong and lasted a long long time. He also was growing so quickly in size and strength that towards the end of his swaddling tenure, he would constantly break free of it. We called him Baby Houdini. During the day, Doc would often keep him wrapped to his body in the Moby wrap. It seemed to sometimes soothe and calm him.
• Jamie wanted to eat every 2 to 3 hours, all the way up until the time I stopped breastfeeding at 5 months and then even well beyond that. When he was going through growth spurts or just feeling particularly bad on any given day, he’d want to eat every 1-1/2 hours. Breastfeeding would take at least 30 minutes, sometimes nearly an hour. So he would finish eating and then be ready to eat again in an hour or less. It was exhausting. After I went back to work, bottlefeeding during the day didn’t take quite as long per session but it was still very tiring for Doc.
• I hated pumping. Hated, hated, hated that damned pump. But I was determined to give Jamie as much of my milk as possible so I did it anyways. Twice a day at work and then as often as I could manage at home between feedings, to build up our frozen supply. At work I pumped in an unused office on the other side of the building. The roof of the attached section of the next building was right outside the window, so I usually had a nice view of birds and squirrels messing around on the roof. Once I realized that some workmen had climbed up there to do roof repairs, literally six feet from where I was sitting with a pump strapped to my torso. Luckily I think the window screening didn’t allow them to see in. I hope so, anyways.
• At some point we bought the side-to-side swing. It was like a small bit of magic; Jamie actually could sleep in it for up to an hour at a time. The side to side motion soothed him. We swaddled him, strapped him into it as best we could, then laid a blanket over him and used art clamps to clamp it tightly to the sides of the swing.
• We spent inordinate amounts of time playing white noise at Jamie. We bought numerous apps for our iPhones that could combine ocean waves and heartbeat sounds. We played the noise fairly loud and it would often flip some sort of switch in his brain after a few minutes and calm him down and let him go to sleep. It’s the equivalent of loud shushing. It would still take a good 15 minutes of white noise to get him to fall asleep.
• When he started napping and then sleeping at night in his crib, in order to get him to sleep we would have to hold him either in cradle hold or monkey hold and bounce up and down on a giant exercise ball. These sessions usually took from 30 minutes to an hour and a half before he’d fall asleep. Gentle bouncing didn’t work most of the time; we really had to hop pretty vigorously. It was hard to hold a screaming crying wiggly baby in pain tightly enough that the bouncing wouldn’t actually jostle him. But we did it, day in, day out, 5-6 sessions per day, for more than a year.
• At 18-1/2 months, Jamieson still does not sleep through the night. He never has, not even once. The longest stretch of sleep he’s gone for was seven hours, and that happened only once. So we, his parents, don’t ever get an unbroken night’s sleep unless we have family in town who pitch in to help us overnight.

Now there are about a zillion wonderful and amazing things about Jamie and about being a parent that makes this all worth it. But I don’t ever want to forget how hard it was, and how proud I am of all of us for getting through it with our sanity intact (mostly anyway).

Oops and OMG. I have had this written for like 2-1/2 months now and it’s been sitting patiently in my drafts folder, waiting for me to notice it and post it!!

—–

Joel and Valerie’s son, Alec Ian, was born on February 24. He’s adorable! He weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces at birth, which was a complete shock to everyone, especially tiny petite Valerie. I think they were expecting a baby in the 6 pound range! We visited them a couple of weeks ago. It’s amazing how tiny they are when they’re that young! It seemed like Jamie was never that small. Of course he was, for a week or so. Alec was very quiet and sweet, and now he is the proud owner of Jamie’s old side-to-side swing. I’m so excited for him to get a little older and be able to play with Jamie.

We have struggled throughout the month to get Jamie to eat more than a few bites at a time. He’s mostly seemed uninterested in food. Until now! The last five days or so (knock on wood) his appetite has picked up. Not so much at breakfast, but better at lunch and by dinnertime he seems really hungry. He’s eating turkey, hot dogs, beans, peas, corn, carrots, applesauce, strawberries, banana, fruit rollups. And of course, his crunchy corn and rice snacks. I’m super pleased that he’s accepting food off of a spoon or fork again. For a few weeks he refused being spoon-fed, which pretty much eliminated veggie or fruit purees from his diet.

He still wakes up twice a night wanting a bottle, and he still gets pediatric soy drink at those times. We have switched his daytime formula from Nutramigen to a soy-based toddler formula. During the day, he’s drinking from a sippy cup almost 100% of the time instead of a bottle, and he’s quickly learning to handle a regular cup without spilling.

Tonight I may try cooking rice or corn/quinoa pasta and see if he’ll eat it.

Overall, he seems to be feeling a lot better, but definitely not 100%. He’s had some bad nights this past month where he wakes 5-6 times per night, crying. Certainly not every night, but enough to make us think that there’s still something going on with his digestive system. His allergist wants to put him on medication. We want to talk to his gastroenterologist before we go that route.

We got Jamie a professional haircut in late February. He had a lot of longer hair up on top, and curly flyaways on the sides. Baby haircuts aren’t particularly cheap, so I closely watched the stylist’s moves so I can try to do it myself next time. Jamie was extremely cooperative, and looks very cute with trimmed hair.

Sickness has been tearing through our house in rounds. I caught a cold in late February, which I passed on to Jamie. He then managed to catch another cold that turned into croup in mid-March. Doc developed a bad cough at the same time (adult croup?), and then as soon as they both seemed better, I got a sore throat and stuffy head. A few days later, Doc got a sore throat and stuffy head. At the moment, we all seem relatively healthy, but clearly we are a family that shares germs amongst ourselves freely!

In early March we drove to Wichita for a few days. Doc’s great-aunt Patty had died after years of illness, and we wanted to see the family and attend the funeral. Jamie was, of course, too fidgety to sit through the service so he and I played outside the funeral home for the duration. At the reception afterwards, he had a good time chasing the ducks around the pond. It was great to see the aunts and uncles, some of the cousins, and of course Grandma Kerry. And later we went with Grandma Kerry to the Sedgwick County Zoo, where Jamie got to pet some sheep and goats at the petting zoo. Those goats were damned aggressive; if they saw you putting change in the goat-food dispenser, they immediately had you surrounded, loudly bleating and pawing at you with their dirty little cloven hooves. In the big cat area, one of the lions was relaxing right up against the plexiglass wall, and he had eyes only for Jamie. Check out the video below. It was kind of unnerving.

It turns out that Jamie likes brooms. It’s tough to sweep the kitchen or the deck because he’s right there, wanting to “help.” Doc got him his own child-sized broom and dustpan, as well as a small toilet plunger (another fascination, LOL). He’ll pick up the deck broom and the outdoor broom and carry them around forever. It’s cute! And he also likes to take rags or paper towels and pretend to wipe surfaces. We think he might be practicing for a future career in the janitorial arts.

In mid-March, we had a weekend where it was 72 degrees on both Friday and Monday, but on Saturday and Sunday we had six inches of snow on the ground. Just when I think that Texas weather can’t surprise me anymore, it does. We’ve had more snow this winter than we have had in, well, ever.

Jamie can now point to many of his body parts when asked, including one we did not specifically teach him. Can you guess which one? Hint: It starts with a W and ends with an IENER. In addition to that one very important part, he knows his eyes, ears, nose, tongue, teeth, mouth, belly, toes, hands, and feet. We’re trying to teach him knees and bottom. And the proper words for everything (no “wee wee” or “bobo”).

And his vocabulary is expanding. In addition to “mama”, “daddy”, “ham”, and  ”hi”, he now can say “up”, “yeah”, “diaper”, and (new this morning!) “nine.” He still doesn’t really use the words in context of his own accord, but we can ask him to say them and he will.