You Know You're a Mom When...

You know you're a Mom when you sign "all done" to your sushi chef.

A Recent Skill

With help from a great gift from Baby Z's aunt and uncle, Baby Z learned a new skill he is pretty proud of... (okay and we are too):

Careless Mom of the Year Award

I wouldn't go as far to say Worst Mom of the Year, but certainly among the top most careless. (At least an honorable mention.) Baby Z was crying up a storm during his nap yesterday because he's sick and because we took away his favorite chew toy: the rail on his crib which we covered in cloth after going through 3 gummi crib rail covers. Just when I decided I would get him up and I'm headed for his door, I hear a big THUMP. I rush into his room and see Baby Z just at the tail end of a ninja roll on the carpet.

He was fine/is fine, and there were no bumps or bruises, just a scared little dude. Thank the Lord. Seriously. I can't even think about the "what ifs" in that scenario. It turned out that I left the crib rail down. Just forgot. Dumb. I'm sure I'm not the first to do it. And I'm sure Baby Z is not the first to take a tumble out of his crib. Still. I felt bad about it. (However, not as bad as the time I snipped the edge of his little ear while trying to trim his hair. All healed now, no disfigurement. Thank the Lord. Seriously.)

Sicky Poo

Baby Z is in the middle of his 3rd cold in his life. I know we are very blessed with a healthy child and these colds are good for him to build his immune system....

But they suck.

Baby Z really doesn't feel that bad most the time (it appears, he hasn't actually told me), but it just makes every finicky thing that much harder. Lunch time-- always more difficult than the other meals-- but when he's sick. Wow. My broccoli, zucchini, scrambled egg eater? The one who was starting to really like the same food Mommy and Daddy eat? Gone. Of course when you're sick you want comfort food. So I'm trying to work with him and try different things he might like. But a person should only eat so much yogurt, don't you think?

Besides eating, sleeping also becomes a problem. You know how it is to try to sleep with a stuffed-up nose. At least we can take some NiQuil (or hard liquor, whatever works for you, I'm just saying...) and it knocks us out. The vast pharmaceutical industry only has this to offer our little ones under the age of 2: Vick's Vapor Rub. At least there's something we can offer. Because the worst thing about your baby being sick is the feeling of helplessness-- that you want to make them all better and you can't.

Little Time for a Victory Parade

Writing a blog is useful for many things. One of these things is it makes me realize how much I don't revel in the successes of being a Mom and just forge on ahead into the next challenge. So, I'm taking this moment of self-reflection to do a little victory parade of our sippy cup progress.

Before Operation Sippy Cup:

After:


I'm packing those bottles away, folks! Yeah!

Making Headway

After 52 hours of persistence, Operation Sippy Cup started to bring results. By Thursday night, Baby Z started to actually sip from the sippy cup mostly willingly. Once you got him going, he'd realize he wanted some of that. He even timed this display of victory at my Mom's house for our weekly dinner. He got a big round of applause for his big gulps from the sippy cup.

Although the war is over, there have been a few insurrections by supporters of the previous regime. Baby Z still occasionally cries and puts his head down in a very dramatic rendition of exhausted defeat. However, Baby Z is doing much better with it. I'm still working on getting enough volume in him, but we're getting there. Yeah!

As I mentioned, phase 2 would be getting him to hold the cup himself. I know he will love this in the long run, but it's hard getting him there. When I show him how to hold the cup with both hands, he locks his arms and screams. This boy does not like to be restricted, especially his hands. So I've been alternating between giving him the sippy cup myself and letting him bandy it about and "try" to drink from it. Needless to say, this is a messy process:



This has been a little hard to let happen, knowing I'm going to have a big mess to clean up. Lesson #849 of motherhood: kids make messes. Embrace them and wait until the VERY end before cleaning up.

Lose the Battle, Win the War

24 Hours into Operation Sippy Cup. There have been casualties:



Baby Z may have won this skirmish, but I'm confident my strategy will win in the long run. I'm pleased I've held my ground and have not touched a bottle since we started yesterday. I'm also pleased that Baby Z is not in any way dehydrated and has eaten very healthily to make up for lost milk calories. So, we can go on like this for a while. Today at breakfast he actually opened his mouth for the sippy cup, which is huge progress from yesterday when the only liquid consumed was dripped into Baby Z's screaming mouth.

There have been a few compromises and adjustments. I am only trying to get him to drink from the sippy cup, not hold it himself yet. That can be phase 2. I also suckered myself into buying more sippy cups. (I already have 4 different kinds I have tried in the past, thinking maybe THIS one he will like.) The ones I bought are the cheap disposable kind with a ridged side that's easy to grab, instead of handles (which only give Baby Z more leverage with which to throw). I am rationalizing that I was going to need more sippy cups anyway, because I've been washing the same sippy cup to use for every feeding, and that wasn't going to work.

Score one for Mommy because Baby Z started holding the new cups and chewing on them in the store. And he willingly drank some juice from it when we got home. It also has the added benefit of not dripping as easily as the other one I've been using, but it's cheapness/flimsiness makes it very easy for Baby Z to pull liquid out of. Yippee! Not that products are ever really the answer to your problems (that illusive holy grail of baby bottles that prevents spit up - ha!), but, heck, if it helps the tiniest bit, All Hail Capitalism!

More from Routine Mom soon, encamped at undisclosed location for Operation Sippy Cup.

Operation Sippy Cup

This week I will be initiating a new phase in Baby Z's development. He is going to graduate from the bottle to the sippy cup. After months of half-hearted attempts to get him to befriend the sippy cup, I've concluded that I will continue to get the full arm slap-away from Baby Z when he is 3 and 4 if I don't step up my game now. It is certainly not going to get easier the bigger and more determined he gets. Most of the skills that require some training have taken a focused, loving forcing, such as dropping feedings and sleeping through the 45-minute nap intruder. Baby Z takes well to a routine and thus doesn't like it too much when things change. (Hm... sound familiar?)

Why the sippy cup, you ask? Well, I was almost convincing myself he might just jump straight to a regular cup one day and be fine. What's so important about a sippy cup anyway? Here are my conclusions (emphasis on mine b/c I'm sure there are other Moms who think differently and love their kids just as much):
1. sippy cup is much more practical than regular cup for baby to use when younger and not as coordinated- less spills, happier Mom.
2. sippy cup is important step in developing different muscles in mouth and jaw -- the baby uses different ones than when they suck from the bottle. This might be the reason doctors recommend dropping the bottle by 18 months.
3. cleaning bottles is a pain and I can't wait to pack them up.
4. baby holding sippy cup himself rather than me holding bottle is easier and more convenient. (I know! I didn't insist on Baby Z learning to hold his bottle-- mistake number 19 of Momhood and something I will do differently with next child.)

I was thinking I could handle a little more work if I ignored many of the reasons above. (Just like I convinced myself that waking up for that one middle of the night feeding wasn't a big deal.) However, reason number 2 is the one that finally convinced me the sippy cup was important for Baby Z, not just a social norm we inflict on ourselves. Overall, I'm treating the sippy cup like a milestone in Baby Z's development -- it will help him master some new skills that will serve him better in the long run. The other reasons are niceties that will help motivate me in the next few days while I struggle to teach Baby Z the art of the sippy cup.

Commence Operation Sippy Cup.* OOhAh.

*Your prayers are much appreciated!