Life is beautiful. Even when it's messy.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Universe is Weird
Our apartment is not the most baby-safe place. There are electrical wires, drawers, shoes, and other things which I cannot hide or stow away. So I try to provide toys and random objects that are safe for Noelle to manipulate.
A few days ago I went out and bought her a chunky puzzle with farm animals and a fat farmer. Each piece had a knob on it, easy for baby's hands to grab and pull on. When I brought it home, I ripped off the plastic covering, my heart quivering in excitement. A new toy for my baby to play with!
I set it down in front of her and she peered at it, engaging slowly. "What are those knobs?" her brain seemed to say.
Then she reached out, pull on one of them, and appeared shocked that the picture of the fat farmer came up with the knob. She gawked at the piece in her hand, looked at the back of the wooden puzzle piece, then shrieked and dropped the piece like it had burned her.
She then proceeded to do the same shriek-and-drop routine with the duck and chicken puzzle pieces. Yes, I dare say that she actually started to cry at this new toy that I bought her!
There are some other toys we have bought her that also make her cry. Like her Gertie Ball. From the moment we blew up the purple ball and bounced it in front of her she has cried like it were a vicious dog barking at her. Today while in the bathroom, I pulled out a loofah for her to "explore." She shrieked and crawled into my arms crying.
It's as if her little mind is trying to accept the fact that not all objects are going to behave the way a solid wooden block does. The loofah is poofy and soft like clothes, but it's heavy and there's a hard plastic stick attached to it. The ball is moving by itself - is it like a dog? Will it jump on me the way I've seen dogs jumping on the grass? What is that loud thing that mommy keeps moving around to and fro on the carpet?
The universe must be a weird place to an infant. Everything is so new and the mind has no way to understand. And so we respond with fear.
A few days ago I went out and bought her a chunky puzzle with farm animals and a fat farmer. Each piece had a knob on it, easy for baby's hands to grab and pull on. When I brought it home, I ripped off the plastic covering, my heart quivering in excitement. A new toy for my baby to play with!
I set it down in front of her and she peered at it, engaging slowly. "What are those knobs?" her brain seemed to say.
Then she reached out, pull on one of them, and appeared shocked that the picture of the fat farmer came up with the knob. She gawked at the piece in her hand, looked at the back of the wooden puzzle piece, then shrieked and dropped the piece like it had burned her.
She then proceeded to do the same shriek-and-drop routine with the duck and chicken puzzle pieces. Yes, I dare say that she actually started to cry at this new toy that I bought her!
There are some other toys we have bought her that also make her cry. Like her Gertie Ball. From the moment we blew up the purple ball and bounced it in front of her she has cried like it were a vicious dog barking at her. Today while in the bathroom, I pulled out a loofah for her to "explore." She shrieked and crawled into my arms crying.
It's as if her little mind is trying to accept the fact that not all objects are going to behave the way a solid wooden block does. The loofah is poofy and soft like clothes, but it's heavy and there's a hard plastic stick attached to it. The ball is moving by itself - is it like a dog? Will it jump on me the way I've seen dogs jumping on the grass? What is that loud thing that mommy keeps moving around to and fro on the carpet?
The universe must be a weird place to an infant. Everything is so new and the mind has no way to understand. And so we respond with fear.
Friday, March 5, 2010
New Avenues
Today we went to the Glendale Public Library where each Friday they have a story telling hour for babies and toddlers, followed by a play time. I thought it would be a good idea to get Noelle started in joining some regular play groups. This was perfect: close by, at the library (one of my favorite places), and right between her naps.
When we got there I knew that it would be what we do every Friday morning. There are bins and bins of toys, lots of babies crawling around and playing, and lots of mothers sitting around talking to each other. Noelle loved it! She is really at a stage where she does not like seeing other mothers (maybe it is related to her fear of having her mother switched out for another?), but she adores seeing other children. When they scream, she squeals. When they laugh, she giggles. It is a joy to witness. When she was there today, she watched the older kids banging the walls with a play hammer. They were engaging in imaginative play: "building a house," they said.
It will be at least a year before her mind is even ready for imaginative play. She is just beginning to have some imitative play. She will pick up her stacking cup and pretend to drink from it.
Right now she is into the minutiae. She wants to pick every little pebble, piece of fuzz, every speck of nothingness off of the floor. Then she wants to put whatever sticks to her finger into her mouth. Who knows what she has eaten? Well, I do - I am the one inspecting her diapers everyday!
One of the mothers at the library said that her son wants to eat and drink everything, too. She said she was horrified when she found her sound drinking from a puddle of water outside!
Last time I went to the children's library, I met a mother whose daughter, one month older than Noelle, was actually more petite than Noelle, whom I feared was not gaining weight adequately. It put my fears to rest after seeing for the first time, a baby smaller than Noelle.
This time at the children's library, I met two mothers who were talking about their birthing experience. They had both had water births at home. They both also happened to be yoga instructors. What caught my attention while they chatted was the fact that they had what they would describe as pretty painless births!
One mother said that she did a lot of prenatal yoga, along with hynobirthing techniques, and she had a painless birth! I could not believe my ears. She said there was some minor back discomfort during contractions, but it was over from start to finish in 6 hours.
The other mother said that while her labor was not painless, it was over in an hour! She said that she felt something in her back; then an hour later, she was giving birth in a tub of water and called it a day!
I always wanted to meet somebody who had had a home birth so I could ask questions and see what their experience was like. Both of these ladies said they would have it no other way, exclaiming that birthing is a very natural process and that women have been giving birth for thousands of years.
Yes, but what about all those women who died in childbirth? And all those infants who died, too? This is the reality, for those people who glamorize "natural childbirth." On the other hand, I have heard too many stories of mothers whose births were over-managed by western hospitals. C-sections galore there! Horrible birthing experiences. That is not the way it should be.
We learn things from people who are not doing it the conventional way. Camille was using an Ergo which she said was way more comfortable than a Baby Bjorn. Nice to know. It has lumbar support and they use it when hiking. I also learned that her PPO covered 4/5th of the cost of her home birth with Leslie Stewart, a midwife whom she highly recommended.
It was nice to come home from the library feeling like I had learned so much - but not from a book - from actual mothers who could tell me in person. And it was nice to hear something new - not just the same old, "I gave birth with this same OB-GYN, at this same hospital." It was a new avenue for me. I am going to look further into home births and am praying that it will be a possibility for us for the next birth.
When we got there I knew that it would be what we do every Friday morning. There are bins and bins of toys, lots of babies crawling around and playing, and lots of mothers sitting around talking to each other. Noelle loved it! She is really at a stage where she does not like seeing other mothers (maybe it is related to her fear of having her mother switched out for another?), but she adores seeing other children. When they scream, she squeals. When they laugh, she giggles. It is a joy to witness. When she was there today, she watched the older kids banging the walls with a play hammer. They were engaging in imaginative play: "building a house," they said.
It will be at least a year before her mind is even ready for imaginative play. She is just beginning to have some imitative play. She will pick up her stacking cup and pretend to drink from it.
Right now she is into the minutiae. She wants to pick every little pebble, piece of fuzz, every speck of nothingness off of the floor. Then she wants to put whatever sticks to her finger into her mouth. Who knows what she has eaten? Well, I do - I am the one inspecting her diapers everyday!
One of the mothers at the library said that her son wants to eat and drink everything, too. She said she was horrified when she found her sound drinking from a puddle of water outside!
Last time I went to the children's library, I met a mother whose daughter, one month older than Noelle, was actually more petite than Noelle, whom I feared was not gaining weight adequately. It put my fears to rest after seeing for the first time, a baby smaller than Noelle.
This time at the children's library, I met two mothers who were talking about their birthing experience. They had both had water births at home. They both also happened to be yoga instructors. What caught my attention while they chatted was the fact that they had what they would describe as pretty painless births!
One mother said that she did a lot of prenatal yoga, along with hynobirthing techniques, and she had a painless birth! I could not believe my ears. She said there was some minor back discomfort during contractions, but it was over from start to finish in 6 hours.
The other mother said that while her labor was not painless, it was over in an hour! She said that she felt something in her back; then an hour later, she was giving birth in a tub of water and called it a day!
I always wanted to meet somebody who had had a home birth so I could ask questions and see what their experience was like. Both of these ladies said they would have it no other way, exclaiming that birthing is a very natural process and that women have been giving birth for thousands of years.
Yes, but what about all those women who died in childbirth? And all those infants who died, too? This is the reality, for those people who glamorize "natural childbirth." On the other hand, I have heard too many stories of mothers whose births were over-managed by western hospitals. C-sections galore there! Horrible birthing experiences. That is not the way it should be.
We learn things from people who are not doing it the conventional way. Camille was using an Ergo which she said was way more comfortable than a Baby Bjorn. Nice to know. It has lumbar support and they use it when hiking. I also learned that her PPO covered 4/5th of the cost of her home birth with Leslie Stewart, a midwife whom she highly recommended.
It was nice to come home from the library feeling like I had learned so much - but not from a book - from actual mothers who could tell me in person. And it was nice to hear something new - not just the same old, "I gave birth with this same OB-GYN, at this same hospital." It was a new avenue for me. I am going to look further into home births and am praying that it will be a possibility for us for the next birth.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Saturdays Are Fun Days
The weekends are fun times in the Lee household. So fun in fact that Noelle loses her Monday-Friday routine of taking 2 naps a day. Jean thinks that it is because Noelle gets really excited when I am around and that I play with her more in the early mornings than Jean would.
Today we made the trek to the Westside for my 6 month dental checkup (which was all good), followed by a visit to Feast from the East for some awesome Chinese Chicken Salad. It was supposed to rain today but we didn't see any rainclouds so we headed for our old stomping grounds UCLA! I've been taking classes for a certificate in HR Management from UCLA Extension so I have a parking pass that is valid on nights and weekends (work even pays for it).
We decided that our journey would start out in Ackerman Student Union so Jean could feed her Wetzel's Pretzels craving and so we could see what had changed (which happened to be a lot). It was nice to bring Noelle to campus and to walk around sharing stories about our college days. Jean and I both went to UCLA but we met at church after we'd both graduated. After Ackerman, we cut through Kerkoff and took an elevator so we didn't walk up Bruin Walk
One thing that stood out about this visit was a new understanding of how inconvenient it must be to be handicap since we were limited to using walkways that included ramps and couldn't use the stairs. If you thought going uphill on Bruin Walk was tiring try having to only use ramps designated for wheelchairs (we only experienced Bruin Walk going downhill though). Noelle and I made the trek downhill while Jean took the stairs. While she was waiting a chinese student tried to evangelize to her and invite her to a bible study.
Since Noelle didn't take her 2nd nap she had an early bedtime so Jean and I didn't eat until she was in bed. Tonight's menu was homemade sukiyaki.
Below is a video that we took on a Monday morning on a day that I didn't go to work.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Dear Noelle,
You are growing up so fast. There are things I want to remember about this first year of your life, images in my mind which I will never forget.
I still remember when you were just a month or two old, when you would wake up crying and I would take that as my cue to feed you. I read from some book that I was supposed to keep you awake at least an hour so that you would fall into a napping schedule. So after I fed you, I put you on my lap, facing me, your little head cradled in my hands. But your eyelids were so heavy, you just couldn't keep it together! Sleep was going to take you, no matter how hard you or I tried. Your arms became limp as old lettuce. During those times we called you the "narco baby" - sometimes you were narcoleptic and other times you were a spasmatic!
I will also always remember how easily startled you were (and are). Thinking that nobody was watching you, you would do all sorts of acrobatics in your crib, singing and talking (baby gibberish) all the meanwhile. Of course I was peaking on you the whole time, and of course I would forget to "approach your crib gently." Just saying "HI NOELLE!" from the door half-cracked would send you into a near heart attack! Please forgive mommy for all those times I scared you and made you cry. Please forgive mommy for that one ridiculous time I decided it was a good idea to vacuum your room during the end of your naptime. It sure woke you up and sent your heart beating ten times as fast as normal. Mommy is such a knucklehead sometimes!
Something that just happened yesterday sent your dad and me into a crazy fit of giggles, and it is also a scene which I will remember always. We were getting ready to go out: I was in the bathroom doing my ugly hair (some parts of it is as short as daddy's hair and it sticks straight up), and I screamed out of frustration. Your dad and I then heard an echo of my scream from your room. You screamed, too! I was the "Marco," you were the "Polo!" Your daddy and I ran to your room out of excitement and found you standing at your safety gate, your eager little face peering over the edge, knuckles white from pulling up to stand. You screamed again, "Ahh!" And then we looked down. Your pants had plain fallen off and were sitting in a puddle at your feet. Mommy didn't realize that you were so skinny and the drawstring on your pants should have been pulled tighter! Of course your pants would fall off when you stood up! Thankfully it happened when you were very young and the laughs we were catapulted into made you smile and giggle, too.
You are our sweet, little girl. We love you so much and can't wait for you to read our letters some day.
Love,
Mommy
I still remember when you were just a month or two old, when you would wake up crying and I would take that as my cue to feed you. I read from some book that I was supposed to keep you awake at least an hour so that you would fall into a napping schedule. So after I fed you, I put you on my lap, facing me, your little head cradled in my hands. But your eyelids were so heavy, you just couldn't keep it together! Sleep was going to take you, no matter how hard you or I tried. Your arms became limp as old lettuce. During those times we called you the "narco baby" - sometimes you were narcoleptic and other times you were a spasmatic!
I will also always remember how easily startled you were (and are). Thinking that nobody was watching you, you would do all sorts of acrobatics in your crib, singing and talking (baby gibberish) all the meanwhile. Of course I was peaking on you the whole time, and of course I would forget to "approach your crib gently." Just saying "HI NOELLE!" from the door half-cracked would send you into a near heart attack! Please forgive mommy for all those times I scared you and made you cry. Please forgive mommy for that one ridiculous time I decided it was a good idea to vacuum your room during the end of your naptime. It sure woke you up and sent your heart beating ten times as fast as normal. Mommy is such a knucklehead sometimes!
Something that just happened yesterday sent your dad and me into a crazy fit of giggles, and it is also a scene which I will remember always. We were getting ready to go out: I was in the bathroom doing my ugly hair (some parts of it is as short as daddy's hair and it sticks straight up), and I screamed out of frustration. Your dad and I then heard an echo of my scream from your room. You screamed, too! I was the "Marco," you were the "Polo!" Your daddy and I ran to your room out of excitement and found you standing at your safety gate, your eager little face peering over the edge, knuckles white from pulling up to stand. You screamed again, "Ahh!" And then we looked down. Your pants had plain fallen off and were sitting in a puddle at your feet. Mommy didn't realize that you were so skinny and the drawstring on your pants should have been pulled tighter! Of course your pants would fall off when you stood up! Thankfully it happened when you were very young and the laughs we were catapulted into made you smile and giggle, too.
You are our sweet, little girl. We love you so much and can't wait for you to read our letters some day.
Love,
Mommy
Friday, February 12, 2010
Family Portraits 2010
We had a great time taking photos with Lukas Van Dyke for Portraits for Missions!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
In Defense of Breastfeeding
It's been awhile since I last posted. Wondering what we've all been up to?
In short, I've been busy nursing and feeding Noelle, and finding acceptable foods to feed my family. She is 8 months old now, her appetite grows by the minute.
At 6 months old (actually at around 5 1/2 months), I fed her rice cereal, which she threw up in the middle of the night. She would wake up screaming throughout the night for the first time. And contrary to the popular advice of well-meaning people, feeding her solids did not help her sleep through the night but only made her wake up with a tummy ache! Rice cereal did not work. The pediatrician suggested oatmeal, which I dutifully fed her for a month, until I noticed that she started developing a horrible rash all over her face with an oddly bloated look. She often turned her head away, not wanting to swallow another bite...
I didn't realize until I stopped many of her solid foods that she was allergic to many of them! She was starting to look like a racoon with red, puffy circles around her eyes, with red, scaly, dry, itchy skin around her nose and mouth. She had food-allergy induced eczema and angioedema!
Under the supervision of Noelle's pediatrician and allergist, we have been on an "elimination diet" for almost one month now: no rice, oats, dairy, eggs, wheat, shellfish, peanuts, sesame, and the list goes on. Good news: her skin is eczema-free! I am now in the process of adding foods in, one week at a time into my own diet, and gauging whether she is allergic or not. So far, as confirmed by a test at the doc's office, Noelle cannot have rice or oatmeal (not even in the breast milk she drinks). Read: I cannot eat rice or oatmeal because it passes into my breast milk.
I am very certain that I introduced solids too early. The more I read, the more I am becoming educated about the digestive and immune system of infants, especially those who are allergy-prone, like mine. An excellent and well-researched book, in case you are interested, is DEALING WITH FOOD ALLERGIES IN BABIES AND CHILDREN, by Janice Joneja, Ph.d
I am finding that what I fed her too early, too frequently, she has now become sensitized to. This makes sense because younger infants lack intestinal maturity - food proteins pass through the intestinal gut wall that are not recognized as safe by the immune system, and consequently the body "attacks" the foreign proteins, producing an allergic response! Boy am I glad I did not feed her formula. If she is allergic to rice (which, btw, people, is considered one of the most hypo-allergenic grains, which is why pediatricians recommend it as a first food), then think what are the chances she would develop an allergy to dairy, which is on the top 10 of most allergenic foods!
So, all that to say, this month has been a busy one in terms of food: finding and testing acceptable foods on her, finding substitutes in my own diet to give an adequate amount of calories and nutrition for a nursing mother. She is nursing 8+ times a day, sometimes 10+. This will make many people's eyes pop out of their heads! I know mothers who weaned their babies at 5, 6, 10 months. But the reality is that there is no other acceptable food for her besides the handful of things that she eats, plus breast milk!
Which leads me to the topic for which this post was named, IN DEFENSE OF BREASTFEEDING:
-Did you know that the American Academy of Pediatrics advises AT LEAST one full year of breastfeeding? It is the best food for your baby! Most easily digested, perfectly balanced nutrition, full of immunities that you can pass onto your baby's otherwise unprotected body.
-Did you know that the World Health Organization recommends two years? Not just for third world countries, people! Breast milk is superior to formula, not the other way around.
-Did you know that the ability to maintain milk supply for your infant varies from mother to mother? Some mothers are able to nurse 3-4 times a day indefinitely while others will see a drop and cessation of milk production when nursing that infrequently. That means that for many mothers, the plan to nurse well into the 1st year means you must nurse more frequently if you want to maintain your supply. Yes, it is a commitment! Yes, it means that as you start seeing less and less mothers nursing their older babies in the nursing room at church, you still go and do it!
I have so much more to share, about the milestones that the girl has reached, but will save that for another post.
In short, I've been busy nursing and feeding Noelle, and finding acceptable foods to feed my family. She is 8 months old now, her appetite grows by the minute.
At 6 months old (actually at around 5 1/2 months), I fed her rice cereal, which she threw up in the middle of the night. She would wake up screaming throughout the night for the first time. And contrary to the popular advice of well-meaning people, feeding her solids did not help her sleep through the night but only made her wake up with a tummy ache! Rice cereal did not work. The pediatrician suggested oatmeal, which I dutifully fed her for a month, until I noticed that she started developing a horrible rash all over her face with an oddly bloated look. She often turned her head away, not wanting to swallow another bite...
I didn't realize until I stopped many of her solid foods that she was allergic to many of them! She was starting to look like a racoon with red, puffy circles around her eyes, with red, scaly, dry, itchy skin around her nose and mouth. She had food-allergy induced eczema and angioedema!
Under the supervision of Noelle's pediatrician and allergist, we have been on an "elimination diet" for almost one month now: no rice, oats, dairy, eggs, wheat, shellfish, peanuts, sesame, and the list goes on. Good news: her skin is eczema-free! I am now in the process of adding foods in, one week at a time into my own diet, and gauging whether she is allergic or not. So far, as confirmed by a test at the doc's office, Noelle cannot have rice or oatmeal (not even in the breast milk she drinks). Read: I cannot eat rice or oatmeal because it passes into my breast milk.
I am very certain that I introduced solids too early. The more I read, the more I am becoming educated about the digestive and immune system of infants, especially those who are allergy-prone, like mine. An excellent and well-researched book, in case you are interested, is DEALING WITH FOOD ALLERGIES IN BABIES AND CHILDREN, by Janice Joneja, Ph.d
I am finding that what I fed her too early, too frequently, she has now become sensitized to. This makes sense because younger infants lack intestinal maturity - food proteins pass through the intestinal gut wall that are not recognized as safe by the immune system, and consequently the body "attacks" the foreign proteins, producing an allergic response! Boy am I glad I did not feed her formula. If she is allergic to rice (which, btw, people, is considered one of the most hypo-allergenic grains, which is why pediatricians recommend it as a first food), then think what are the chances she would develop an allergy to dairy, which is on the top 10 of most allergenic foods!
So, all that to say, this month has been a busy one in terms of food: finding and testing acceptable foods on her, finding substitutes in my own diet to give an adequate amount of calories and nutrition for a nursing mother. She is nursing 8+ times a day, sometimes 10+. This will make many people's eyes pop out of their heads! I know mothers who weaned their babies at 5, 6, 10 months. But the reality is that there is no other acceptable food for her besides the handful of things that she eats, plus breast milk!
Which leads me to the topic for which this post was named, IN DEFENSE OF BREASTFEEDING:
-Did you know that the American Academy of Pediatrics advises AT LEAST one full year of breastfeeding? It is the best food for your baby! Most easily digested, perfectly balanced nutrition, full of immunities that you can pass onto your baby's otherwise unprotected body.
-Did you know that the World Health Organization recommends two years? Not just for third world countries, people! Breast milk is superior to formula, not the other way around.
-Did you know that the ability to maintain milk supply for your infant varies from mother to mother? Some mothers are able to nurse 3-4 times a day indefinitely while others will see a drop and cessation of milk production when nursing that infrequently. That means that for many mothers, the plan to nurse well into the 1st year means you must nurse more frequently if you want to maintain your supply. Yes, it is a commitment! Yes, it means that as you start seeing less and less mothers nursing their older babies in the nursing room at church, you still go and do it!
I have so much more to share, about the milestones that the girl has reached, but will save that for another post.
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