Children – Page 18 – My Truant Pen

Thane at ten months

At some point the rate of change slows and you go from weekly updates to monthly to quarterly to, eventually, annually. We are still firmly in the “monthly changes” zone with Thane.

My last monthly update with Thane, I believe I confidently promised he’d be walking by the time I went to update once again. I was wrong. Thane isn’t walking yet. This might be because he’s so darn busy growing up in other ways. It’s harder this time, though, because the changes are extremely clear and important, but hard to write about. So I’ll start with the easy ones.

Food: We’ve mostly weaned. We haven’t entirely weaned. At night, before I go to bed, I take a 99% asleep baby out of his crib and kiss his curly head and nurse him – every night wondering if I’ll do it again tomorrow night. I am not sure if he gets a lot of milk that way, although I hear swallowing. I do know it’s desperately sweet to hold him in the dark quiet before bed and it appears to be working. So we’ll be keeping up this night nursing until we don’t. Other than that, Thane is quite an eater. He loves loves loves dairy. His two favorite foods in the world are whole yogurt mixed with fruit (usually applesauce) and chunks of cheese. He also adores beans – kidney beans, black beans, etc. He does a great job of feeding himself carb-type foods: small bagels to gnaw on, pieces of bread or crusts of pizza (he likes pizza), graham crackers, Cheerios, etc. He’s less enthused about carbs that are fed to him, like oatmeal or baby cereal. After a torrid love affair with blueberries, he now disdains them like a snooty suitor who found a richer wife, but will still eat other fruits such as strawberries, peaches, bits of apple, etc. He really likes yellow squash and zucchini, which is good because so does Farmer Dave. It’s hard to tell when Thane is hungry, because even when he’s OMGSTARVING he’ll vehemently refuse a food which isn’t the food he desires. You have to try a few kinds of food before concluding he’s not hungry. I’ve learned this one the hard way. Thane’s an adventurous eater and will try some of pretty much anything – including raw lemon. (Mean ol’ daddy….) In fact, there’s many a dinner when Thane has eaten more of the main meal than Mr. Grey.

Teeth: This week has heralded the appearance of two new teeth, poking not-quite-evenly from the top gum line. One is right before eruption, one is right past. Chomp! Imagine what he’ll be able to eat with double his current number of teeth!

Movement: Here we start getting into the ambiguous and hard to describe. The idea of walking just completely turned on for Thane last week, as he and I walked out of White Lake in the intermittent summer sun. Since then, he’s been very, very interested in standing and much more stable. He’s cruising from surface to surface instead of crawling between them. He stands by himself. He can almost stand up by himself, without holding on to anything. It’s amazing how many steps there are between crawling and truly walking, and how each small improvement looks so large and yet isn’t actually all the way to walking yet.

And now for the hard ones. Let’s see.

Thane loves loves loves books. He’ll sit for more books than I have patience for. The other day when he was sick, I read him 8 consecutive books. He turned the pages correctly, at the correct time. The last book we read was a book of opposites. On the last page it says “Hello. Goodbye!” When I read “Goodbye!” he waved to the book. (I, of course, melted into a puddle of goo.) He’ll be quiet for a book when he’s really fussy, even when he’s fussy with good reason. He steals his brother’s books out of the toy bin in the back seat. He looks at them intently and with great patience.

Thane’s at the throwing stage. There’s this fantastic stage of childhood when kids throw everything, including things they want. Dinner in the high chair? Toss. A bowl within reach? Down it goes. Toys in the car? How far can I throw them? And then the kids get very upset because they don’t have any fooooooood and there are no tooooys for them to play with. WAAAAAH! This is how you learn cause and effect. It’s also incredibly annoying.

Grey and Thane are having a great time being brothers – most of the time. It’s actually going way better than I expected. Although Grey can get a bit snippy when Thane wants to play with his toys or when Thane is whining in the car (see also: throwing all your toys out of the carseat), most of the time it’s easier having the two of them. Grey hates being alone, for example. But with Thane counts as not-alone. They’ll play together in a room with Thane providing the part of observer. (Which parent hasn’t gotten tired of the “Mom! Mom! Look at this!”?) Yesterday in the car driving home was a delightful example. Grey was putting a book on his head and having it fall off. Thane thought this was quite possibly the funniest thing EVER. For 10 minutes all I heard was Grey hamming it up with the book and Thane laughing as though his sides were about to split — this great laugh halfway between baby and person. It was awesome.

Thane is also beginning to show appropriate (if sometimes frustrating) personality. If you take a toy away from him, he will weep. Bitter, bitter tears. Sadly, he considers my coffee a desirable toy. If you take my coffee away from me, I weep bitter, bitter tears. This is something of an impasse. Most of the time, though, he bounces right back from disappointment. He generally has a sunny and joyful nature.

There are the beginnings of language with Thane. He says “da da” in a convincing way. I swear that I heard him say “Gwey” — I have witnesses. He doesn’t usually say “ma ma” unless I prompt him to. He certainly knows his own name, but that will be a tough one to pronounce. Grey still calls him “Dane”. He clearly understands plenty of words (see also: waving “bye bye” to a book)

Thane hates hats and bibs with a blinding passion. He sucks his thumb when he’s upset and sleeps with his butt in the air. He loves playing with spoons. He waves his arms when he’s excited. He has the sweetest curls.

He is a joy.

The beginning of the end of summer

We went camping again this weekend — the last of our planned three day weekends in New Hampshire. It just so happened that this long-planned weekend coincided with Hurricane Bill. It was rather, uh, wet. And damp. And muddy. Happily, our tent has the floor plan of the Taj Mahal (although it did seem to shrink as the weekend went on), my husband is a tarp-affixing, rope-tying ninja, and we contrived to have fun despite the thunder and lightening.

Some friends were camping at the same time and they brought us fresh-baked cookies. Such things had not been dreampt of in my philosophy before.

Other notes on camping:

We played “Roll Through the Ages” again which is a great two player game. Sadly, it was likely the last time I’ll get to play it since it was roughly my 6th consecutive win and I won by a huge margin. This doesn’t bode well for talking my husband into it again.

We managed to sneak some lake time in between thunderstorms. On the plus side, nearly no time was wasted applying sunscreen!

Thane developed amazingly during the weekend. When we returned, Unka Matt got a quizzical look on his face and asked, “Has he grown up since Thursday?”. Yes, Unka Matt, he had.

That last one probably deserves more than a bullet point. The last day, after we’d broken camp and gotten everything in the car, we went for a final swim in some of the best weather we’d had to date. As we reluctantly pulled ourselves out of the warm waters, I held Thane’s arms to have him walk out – on a whim. It was too deep to let him crawl, so I kept him on his feet. And we walked. And during that walk, something turned on for him – the realization that there was this new tranportation method available to him and that this was something he could do. He desires it. Thane has not yet taken his first unsupported steps, but he has stood for significant periods of time. He’s cruising. He’s on the verge. It was astonishing to see that moment of transition between a crawler and one who aspires to walk.

Unlike previous camping trips, I didn’t take any pictures this time. I’m not sure why not – I just didn’t. The only pictures taken were on our way home, at the Miss Wakefield Diner. As I took this picture, my loving husband said, “This is why I wanted to be a father. I remember now.”

Done nursing

I’m done.

I’d hoped to nurse Thane through to a full year – he’s nearly 10 months old now. I made it just about 7 months with Grey. But I think this phase of my life has come to a close.

I’m a big supporter of breastfeeding. I’ve also had problem-free experiences. My milk has come in well. My babies nursed easily and right away. I’ve always had enough supply to meet demand – at least when they were little. But I start having trouble once they start crawling. I’ve come to the conclusion that the people who manage to nurse to a year or more have children who sit more quietly than mine do. You should see some of the acrobatic feats Thane has accomplished while attached to me. He’s got two teeth now. He’s started biting. He twists and winds. Unless he’s 90% asleep, it’s not really a pleasure to nurse him. I’ve been pumping for nearly 7 months now — a huge part of my day spent in a super-cold server room. But without the pumping, the supply doesn’t keep up. And finally, my trip to Washington not unexpectedly put a huge dent in my supply, even though I diligently pumped all the time I was away from Thane.

I have three options: keep trying to nurse him and attempt to deal with all these complications one by one, stop nursing him and feel like a failure for not making it to a year, or stop nursing him and feel like a success for having nurtured such a big, strong, healthy kid for as long as worked for both of us. I’ve decided to go with the latter.

There are a lot of emotions around this. Nursing is pretty cool. I mean, suddenly your body does this awesome, useful thing that very few other people can do. Imagine if your belly button suddenly started producing Hershey’s kisses on demand? It’s just awesome. I’m going to be sad when my body turns this new functionality off. I’d kind of rather keep it around unless I need it, you know? But no. If you don’t use it, you lose it. On the other hand, I might now be able to wear some of my more fitted blouses. Or (gasp) dresses. Or get some bras that do not look like they came from the 30s. I’m not going to have this little alarm clock in my head reminding me I better get some private time with a pump or my baby soon. I won’t look down in surprise to see any warm stains spreading when I don’t succeed in this.

It’s time. Thane has shared my body for over 18 months now. I’m ready to get it back to all mine.

I’d like to close up with some numbers. I know lots of people seem go online to find out “what’s normal”. I think I had a pretty normal nursing and pumping experience. I’d also like to give some perspective to people who think pumping is easy. I actually kept detailed records on how much I pumped (because, well, I do love me some data). Here’s how it plays out.

I pumped:

For 26 weeks
For 261 sessions over 108 days
1626.5 ounces

That comes out to:
15 ounces a day
6 1/3 ounces a session (on average)
62 ounces a week
2.5 sessions a day

If you assume I spent 15 minutes a session pumping (I think it’s likely to be more) I spent a total of 62.25 hours pumping. Over those six months, I produced 12.7 gallons of breastmilk.

Please note that I nursed during lunch, during weekends and during time not spent at work. The above figures reflect the amount of milk produced while working full time.

Good job, Tigris and Euphrates.

Enjoy your week of summer!

It’s hot here in the greater Boston area. The last three days it’s been in the low 90s during the day, high 70s at night with the standard miserable amount of humidity. It has been a very cold summer so far. This has been our first real heat wave, and given that we’re in the middle of August, there isn’t a whole lot of really hot possibilities left. We don’t have central air conditioning — instead we have four really big, really have box ACs that we usually put in the windows — cursing and sweating — somewhere in early July. They’re so obnoxious to install and then remove that we don’t put them in until we HAVE to. And now it seems a little late. All that effort for the remaining two or three weeks where it MIGHT be that hot? Turn on the overhead fans, and suffer, says I.

Then on Saturday in his good-night nursing, Thane seemed hot. Really hot. To the touch. All that night he seemed really hot. When we finally got around to taking his temperature, even after we’d administered Tylenol, it came in at 102.4. Ouch. 90 outside. 102.4 in your body. So you’d think that Thane would be super fussy and uncomfortable. Nah. He’s mellow and going with the flow, although he is a touch fussier than usual and is completely uninterested in food. (That’s ok — you don’t need to eat a ton all the time. I do, however, wish he was more interested in beverages. I think he’s at high risk for dehydration.)

So my helpful brother installed the AC in Thane’s room. It’s already one of my favorite rooms in the house. Now, however, I am trying to talk my husband into moving our bed there.

I’m working from home with Thane today. My brother took Grey to and (will) from daycare, and is pinch-hitting with Thane while I work. His temp was down to an unmedicated 99.9 this morning and 99.4 this afternoon, so he’s clearly on the mend. I might’ve sent him to daycare this time last year, but with the swine flu rooting around, it seems like the better thing to do to keep him home. My only regret is that work has AC.

I spent most of the weekend making jam. Ok, that’s not ACTUALLY true, but it feels true. On Saturday, after swimming lessons and before our trip to the pool I made a batch of strawberry jam from $2/pint organic strawberries from the Farmer’s Market outside the YMCA in Melrose. Then I made blueberry jam from our farmshare blueberries. Then I realized I’d totally underestimated just how much sugar jam takes and my paltry 5 lb bag was completed wiped out.

Sunday, my husband and Grey picked up more sugar and pectin for me after church. I put in a second batch of strawberry jam from the farmer’s market strawberries (strawberry is the jam of choice in our household). I have plans for two to three more batches. I have peaches, but I didn’t buy QUITE enough and I’m likely to get some from our farmshare tomorrow. Also, the peaches aren’t quite ripe, so they can stand another day or two of sitting around. I’m also planning on farmshare apricot jam. I got only about half the apricots I needed, so I processed them and will hopefully get another 20 apricots this week, which should be enough. My husband has requested marmalade, which I’ve never made before, so I may give that a shot, too.

So my jam count:
2 strawberry (completed)
1 blueberry (completed – unless I get a lot more farmshare blueberrries)
1 peach (fruit obtained)
1 apricot (50% fruit obtained)
1 marmalade (speculative)

I find jamming intensely satisfying. There is something about capturing the moment – about your hard work turning these ephemeral items into the durable, delicious product that I will eat for the rest of the year, share with friends, give as gifts, and feed my family with.

It’s also something I’ve done since I was a girl. My mom has been making raspberry jam every summer since well before I was, er, 6? I know we had raspberries in Prosser, and I think she planted them in Bonner’s Ferry. Fresh homemade jam plus fresh homemade bread is one of the great delights of summer.

When I stand stirring the dark jam, the hot sugar and fruit smell permeated the kitchen, with sweat beading out and darkening the small curls on the back of my neck, hearing the “pop” of the previous batch of jam setting. Well. Those are the moments that are the last to leave you when you look back on your life.

Thane at 9 months

Thane already has started looking like a boy, not a baby

I took Thane to his 9 month checkup last week. He doesn’t actually turn 9 months old for another 6 days, so I’m splitting the difference here.

To sum up the stats, Thane is tall, medium weight and right on target.

His weight is 19lbs 12oz (50th percentile). This increases to roughly 90 pounds when he falls asleep.
His height is 29 inches (80th percentile)
His head circumference (which I’ve never figured out why I care about) is 18 inches (70th percentile)

So far so good.

Thane has totally taken off. He’s a very speedy crawler. He easily pulls up to standing on flimsier and flimsier props. He knows how to get back down from standing (this is not always obvious to children). He can climb up stairs and down steps. He is very, very strong. He is morally opposed to lying quietly while having his diaper changed and twists his body with amazing strength.

Thane is also at the “huh, wonder what this tastes like?” stage. The other afternoon, I noticed he was chewing on something in the front yard. The “something” happened to be the treated, dyed mulch I had proudly put out on my flower beds. There go those 1000 brain cells. The next morning, it was a foam dinosaur sticker he found on the floor. While we were camping, in the shallows he’d pick up fistfuls of sandy lake muck and attempt to ingest them. The thing is, we’re not lacking for vigilance! He is just faster than we are, with preternatural spidey senses for finding overlooked objects with which to freak out the grownups in his life.

Foodwise, this is becoming a blessing. A child who happily masticates beauty bark will also make a manful attempt on cucumber. The preternatural skill for gnawing on various of his brothers toys also extends to Cheerios, blueberries and little mini-bagel things. I’m on a push to have him eat up the last of his babyfoods, because unless he’s STARVING TO DEATH (which, well, is not infrequent) he’d much rather feed himself than be fed. But man, that kid is messy. I think he saves food for later by throwing it on the floor. Rubbing your eyes is a BAAAAAD idea when the meal was chili and you insist on crushing it in your tiny fist. The prophylactic 3 oz of prune juice he gets a night darken his cute dinosaur onesies like the blood of his victims. (On the very plus side, the prune juice is working! The, er, issues he was having are much improved.)

So downside: puts everything he can reach in his mouth. Upside: puts everything he is served in his mouth.

The next two milestones on the list are talking and walking — probably the biggest two. For a while I thought he might walk in a week and a half — at grandma’s house. It only seems fair since he first crawled at OTHER grandma’s house. Now I think he’s going to need to work harder on cruising and standing before he’ll get to walking. He’s certainly strong enough, but he hasn’t made enough progress on balance. I’m almost certain he’ll be walking (God help us all) before his 10 month update.

Talking he is working on. “Da da” seems to mean, “Hey, you there. Person who can do stuff for me.” Grey is greatly affronted that Thane thinks he is “Da da”. I’m working on teaching him “Ma ma” but he just replies back, more intentionally and tentatively, “Da da?”

Grey has settled on a nickname for his sibling. I have started a therapy fund for my youngest. I suppose that there are worse nicknames than “Thaney-Waney”. I just hope it doesn’t stick.

Thane is an interesting combination of unutterably patient and demanding. If you keep changing the scene, he’s incredibly patient. He’ll sit in his stroller for a long time while there are people doing interesting things or if the stroller is moving. (He spent a lot of the time we were camping in his stroller. See also: puts everything he finds in his mouth.) He misses naps and is subjected to relatively gruelling days (doing things like swimming and hiking), without a murmur. Long car rides are a cinch, compared to what they were with a similarly young Grey. But once he gets bored. Hoo boy. He lets you know that he isn’t happy and you better change something, stat.

His sleep patterns are relatively regular right now. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8, after having eaten a dinner of solid foods and consumed his 3 oz of prune juice. He absolutely ADORES books and will sit very quietly and attentively in your lap while you read to him. He generally goes to sleep quickly and quietly on his belly in his crib. Between 10 and 11 pm he’ll wake up or we’ll wake him up for a nursing session before bed. Around 4 he wakes again to be fed. At 6:30 or so he’s up for the morning. Grey gets up at the same time every morning. My poor husband, who gets most of the morning duty, is VERY TIRED. Grey can be placated with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Thane? Not so much.

Thane is still very grabby, although it’s fading. I haven’t worn a necklace in about 3 months, after he broke two of them with his wily ways. He has a tendency to have razor sharp claws that can do serious damage to noses, and he’s not afraid to use them. “Gentle” has not been a concept he’s learned yet.

Thane is boisterously energetic. One of his favorite things to do is play “tag” with Grey, as Grey runs back and forth and Thane lumbers happily after him. Those two boys love each other. In fact, Grey will try to wake Thane up on car rides because he wants to play with Thane. (I frown on this.) Thane takes it with good grace, although he’s a heavier sleeper than Grey was. Sometimes when I go to lunch, Thane will be fast asleep in his crib in a room full of exuberant kids.

I think I have started to see glimpses of Thane’s face — the one he’ll have when the babyfat is gone and his features stand defined. I think he’ll be handsome. I think he’ll look a lot like his father, although he may have my cheeks. I’m not really ready for it. I’ve enjoyed Thane’s babyhood so much, I am not eager to progress towards boyhood at such a quick clip.

Ah well. You cannot hold back time. And it is a joy to watch my son grow in health and strength, even if wisdom seems to be a lagging indicator.

Sometimes the symbolism hits you over the head

Glorious!

I was lying in the summer-warmed water of a small New Hampshire lake. The sun was gently warm on my upturned face. Pines surrounded the lake with taller peaks framing the tableau. The air was full of the sound of happy children playing — the yells and shouts and laughter. My ears were stopped by the water, where it was blessedly blissfully quiet. I noticed I was far more buoyant than normal, with my nursing-large breasts and Tevas dragging the rest of me towards the surface. And for that glinting moment in the sun, I just WAS and it was good.

Later that afternoon — after a long leisurely tent-nap — I noticed my watch had stopped keeping time on that swim.

Every once in a while, the symbolism just comes down and smacks you.

We had a fantastic three-day weekend camping. We spent two nights at White Lake State Park, this time. The water was the best. When I was playing with my sons in the water, I had the rare sensation of being completely engaged. I was entirely present in the play, and not thinking ahead or behind or calculating or listening to something else or wishing that I was anywhere but where I was. I threw my laughing children into the air and caught them as they splashed in the water. I watched them discover what they could do in this unusual medium — sand squishing between small toes and eyes squinting against bright sun. I watched my husband, strong and lithe, play with the boys who look so much like him.

The camping parts were great too. We made a vast improvement by putting Thane to sleep in his car seat inside the tent. He was far more comfortable AND we had more room for important things like stomp rockets, rope for practicing making knots and marshmallows. My husband delighted in knot tying (really delighted — he was nearly illuminated with the joy of learning this new skill — and our tarp only took about 4 hours to get up!) Grey poked things with sticks and stayed up too late and ate his bodyweight in marshmallows and made his brother laugh. Thane? Well, Thane probably got the short end of the deal. He really liked the water (a lot!) but spent most of his time hanging out in his stroller, which is probably not as much fun as getting to eat dirt and rub pine needles into his hair.

There were, of course, tribulations. Notably, the first night was an absolute deluge. The rain was phenomenal. On the plus side, we had a drum-tight tarp to keep us dry, which it did. On the negative side, we therefore had a snare drummer playing above our head all night long. Also, Thane woke up inconsolable, which is really hard when we’re all in such a short space. I’m not sure what was wrong with him, and therefore I couldn’t fix it quickly and that woke up Grey and that meant, well, let’s just say we were sleepy by the time the weekend was over.

Also, let us discuss for a moment the word cheap. Cheap can mean inexpensive — a bargain. Cheap can also mean low-quality. When one encounters “cheap” firewood, perhaps one should not be surprised when it turns out to have been cut last week in a bog, where it has been stored since. It took me two and a half hours to get a fire going with said “cheap” firewood. I can usually get a fire going with one match using no man-made materials in about 15 minutes. (We used to heat with wood. I’m really pretty good at fire-building.) The tinder would go up, the fire would appear started and then in 5 minutes it would be dead. The cheap firewood didn’t just smoke, it steamed.

There was also a plague of frogs. If I had to pick a plague, I think the plague of frogs was probably the one I’d mind least. They were pretty cute little buggers, but TINY. There were so many of them that on a walk with Grey we could hardly step without imperiling the little froggy bodies below us. The forest floor twitched with the movement of perfectly camouflaged frogs.

I think we will go camping again SOON. I keep wishing we could go with friends or another grownup so that my husband and I could go witness the miracle of stars, or listen to the loon sing a night-song on the lonely lake. But even if my husband didn’t like camping (which he does), I think he would go just to watch the petals of the flower that is me uncurl and turn to the new-shining sun. The wilderness is manna to me. It is sunshine. It opens me up and drops my defenses. It makes me remember what I like about myself and forget my mantras of doubt, gloom and distraction. I like who I am in the woods.

Driving home, I couldn’t help but be excited by what we were doing, and had done. Already, a grand two trips in, we have traditions. There’s the “Miss Wakefield Diner” and their chocolate chip pancakes. There’s the spooooooky stories (not so spooky) around the fire. There’s rough-housing in the tent. There’s swimming in the lake. There are memories saved up against cold February days and the creeping sense of dismal sameness.

There is joy, a shared joy, and remembered joy.

The quandries of a blogger-mom

So in my “blog queue” I have a cute picture and I have a developmental update. The cute picture is Grey. The developmental update is Thane.

The deciding vote comes down to laziness. Posting pictures? Easy. Posting developmental updates? Not easy.

So here you go. I paid $15 for this picture. I removed for you the truly hideous border that used to surround it. There is one child in this picture that doesn’t look terrible. Happily, that child is my child.

This, my friends, is a ripoff:

I trust I don't have to point out which one is mine

Ok, so the girl in the upper left is pretty cute too

My son the Pike

When he was born, I labelled Grey a barracuda. But Saturday morning at 9:45 am he became a Pike.

It was amazing to see the difference between swimming lessons this year and last year. Last year he was wearing a swim diaper. This year he’s potty trained. Last year I had to change all his clothes for him. This year, he gets in and out of his own clothing. Last year I held him throughout the lesson during the mom-and-baby portion. This year he bravely jumped into the pool while I sat clothed, drinking coffee and pretending to read Virgil on the benches.

I think the part that got to me most was watching his enthusiasm, energy and concentration as he listened to his teachers and followed his instructions. He was trying so hard. No one could kick more vigilantly. No one bounced up and down and the water more vibrantly. He gave the swimming lesson everything he had, fearless and without holding back. And I took the place a parent should — quietly supportive on the sidelines.

Grey has a phenomenal, amazing memory. It’s been a full year since we went to swimming lessons, right? More than a quarter of Grey’s entire life has passed since last we went to the Y. But do you believe that blessed child remembers that there is a Starbucks right next to the Y and that if he behaves himself he is entitled to a chocolate milk therein afterwards? For sure he does. How he remembers this, I do not know because I SWEAR I didn’t bring it up, but he did.

Feeding a Thane

I’m finding it a fascinating experience to discover what is largely unchanged child-to-child, what is unique to each individual person, and just how much I’ve forgotten in three years. Food has to be one of those issues.

Does his face look different to you? I swear it's changed in the last week.

Breastfeeding I remembered thinking about. One of the things I dislike about nursing is just how much attention I find myself compelled to pay to it. I suspect this has a lot to do with me and my personality. My brother was commenting the other day just how much time I spend WORRYING about things and planning for things. It’s true — I hardly even notice because I’ve always been like that. But I notice with breastfeeding. I constantly wonder if I’m making enough milk to satisfy, how long it’s been since I last nursed, whether I’ve gone too long and am risking my supply blah blah blah. I think about it all the time. It’s exhausting. I take action on it all the time, too. I am still pumping at work twice a day, almost 6 months after my return.

Well, I’ve set myself a deadline. We’re headed out to Washington in the first week of August, at which point we’ll dump our children onto my parents and decamp. Or rather, camp. I’m planning on backpacking. I don’t see a great way to bring out enough frozen breast milk to provide for Thane while I’m there. And I don’t see a good way to preserve breastmilk while I’m backpacking the West Side of Mt. Rainier. So my plan is this: get Thane sufficiently accustomed to formula so that he can be on that while I’m gone. Bring my breast pump so I don’t totally shut off my supply, but stop worrying about it constantly. And then when I get back, I’m done pumping during the day and Thane can have formula at daycare. We’ll continue nursing when we’re in proximity for as long as it continues working. If this spikes nursing totally, so be it.

Of course, this matters waaaay less than it used to because Thane is getting so much more food from food. What I had forgotten about this stage was how unbelievably messy it is. Cheerios are all well and good, if a cross between a nutritional meal and a projectile weapon. Blueberries are beloved, but risky (nothing stains like blueberry!) But dear me, when the baby food comes out! First of all, Thane objects to not having control of all objects in his proximity. This is true of glasses, necklaces (I haven’t worn a necklace in about two months), noses, toys and spoons. So especially before he’s gotten his first bite, he’ll do a very good impression of an anti-spoon-aircraft battery. Usually he manages to at least hit away the spoon, which dislodges some food, which he promptly grabs with his hand. Then he rubs his eye.

“Ow! Mom! Someone put something in my eye! It hurts!” further evidence, if any was needed, that 8 month olds are not geniuses.

Once I sneak in that first bite (often while he’s protesting the indignity of not being allowed his own spoon), he’ll either decide he loves the food and open up (I always feel like a mommy bird popping worms in my baby’s mouth), or close his mouth tight in protest. Neither one really stops the questing hands.

The result is absolute chaos. He’s usually covered in food. His eyes are covered in food. His tray is covered in food. I’m covered in food (he has this charming habit of blowing raspberries). The floor is covered in food. The sides of the high chair are covered in food. And he’s hitting the tray with a stolen spoon, like some Victorian food protester.

Yeah, I think our babyfood days are limited. Time to start doing more finger foods.

Thane at 8 months

This is the face of a kid who skipped his nap and is being carted around on his moms back — This is the face of a kid who skipped his nap and is being carted around on his mom's back

Sunday in church, as we were singing the final hymn, my husband started grinning. Given that he and I act like a pair of teenagers half the time we’re in church, I figured he just thought of something funny and gave him the quizzical eyebrow-raise. During the ending anthem-thingy he explained. “I just suddenly thought of Thane’s smile, and the very memory of it makes me smile”*

It’s true. My son’s smile is so exuberant and infectious that the very memory of greeting him in the morning can make you grin. All milestones aside, this is what is important about Thane.

But milestones there are! This was the month my son discovered mobility. He started crawling at Grandma’s house over Memorial Day weekend. By now, he’s lightening fast. He likes to do loops around the center island of our home. He’s eel-like — strong, squirmy and often slimy — when it comes to nursing or changing diapers. It is nearly impossible to put clothes on the child be cause he is GO GO MOVE MOVE! He seems to have a special affinity for books and shoes. He loves to play with them and put them in his mouth and generally check them out. He’s persistent. If he’s removed from an inappropriate object, he will try repeatedly to return to it.

His legs are incredibly strong. He’s pulling up to standing often, although usually on low objects. It’s more like pushing up to standing, since he rarely pulls UP, but rather pushes down to get on his feet. Yesterday, he stood for about a minute while only holding on to the collar of my shirt. It will be interesting to see if he’s satisfied with crawling, or if he decides to add walking to his repertoire by the 9 month update.

His baby babble has gotten delightful. Always a Daddy’s Boy, he spent the entire morning saying “Dadadadad”. He makes a vast array of sounds, from a delighted squeaky laugh to an insistent bird-like squawk to a truly delightful content-sound that beggars description. He is really clapping these days, which is lots of fun. Knocking down a tower of blocks is a never-ending joy and delight.

His deep affection for overhead fans remains undimmed.

One of the real issues we’ve had with him since we started solid foods half his lifetime ago has been constipation. He’ll try and try and become very unhappy because it’s not working. I cut down his solids so he was eating almost entirely fruit. He’s still breast-fed. But it didn’t work. Finally I called his doctor (shoulda done that earlier) to explain that the all-prunes, all-the-time diet wasn’t working, and was told to give him prune juice. I’ve never given my infants juice because, well, they didn’t need it and it just represented empty calories (I thought). But my! What a difference 2 oz a night of prune juice has made! He has stealth poops now, that we only discover to our chagrin later! This is infinitely preferable. So there’s my advice to you all, in case you ever find yourself in similar straits.

This is the incredibly messy state with food. He desires mastery over the babyfood spoon. He looooooooves Cheerios, but his method of eating them resembles artillery as much as fine dining. He can thwart the craftiest parent with a well-aimed swipe at a spoon, and if that fails, he’s not above blowing green-bean-bubbles. I had blocked this stage from my memory with Grey. It’s MESSY, but the only way to teach him to eat real food is to give him real food to eat and suffer the consequences.

Thane is becoming a pickier sleeper. He used to just go down very easily. But at Grandma’s at the beginning of the month, he really didn’t like to go to sleep in his Pack and Play. And we discovered at camping, to our chagrin, our Pack and Play was just as despised as hers. Lately he’s been fussing more about going to sleep, even when visibly tired. I suppose it is some compensation that he will sometimes now sleep between 10:30 (pre-my-bedtime feeding) and about 6 am. He’ll usually go back to sleep after the 6 am feeding.

Grey and Thane make awesome brothers. There was this wonderful, fantastic moment while we were camping when we were all hanging out in our tent before bedtime. Grey had a very interesting glowstick that Thane wanted to check out (see also: eat). Grey would run to one side of the tent and Thane would chase after him. Round and round they went, laughing and giggling, while their father and I watched with joy. Grey’s started to get a little annoyed with some things Thane does — like playing with a toy Grey wants or making loud noises in the car. But normal, happy siblings get annoyed with each other. Grey also pays a lot of attention to his brother. He’ll often try to cheer him up when he’s sad. He’ll ask where Thane is when he’s not currently visible. He’ll give him toys (after checking first!) if Thane seems fussy. Grey has a very strong intuition for knowing what’s bugging his brother.

Thane’s personality has started to strongly express itself. This can be difficult because it is hard to consider another person’s opinions and preferences — especially when those preferences are strongly pro-eating-shoelaces. But it’s also one of the great delights of parenthood, to watch your children become the people they are. I love every minute of being Thane’s mother.

*All husband-quotes approximate. He hates it when I misquote him, but I can never remember EXACTLY what he said.