Eluned G. Sharron Bethea » January 2009 Journal Entries » AboutMyBaby - online baby scrapbooks, photo albums, videos, birth and pregnancy announcements

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Fri, Jan 30, 2009 10:00 PM
Eluned has started using a whole new set of sounds that I can barely imitate and probably can't adequately describe. They're in the back of her throat and sound like consonants pronounced together -- that range of "gli, gli" to "yr, yr" kind of syllables. It sounds like she's speaking a foreign language. They don't sound Spanish to me or Will, but they might be; we barely speak any ourselves. These sounds make up an increasing part of her chatter.

Comments:
Kate: I've heard an occasional 'f' but nothing beyond that yet.

Sarah: My memory recalls that babies try out all the possible sounds vocal cords can make and will pick up on the ones repetitively heard and will discard eventually those that are ignored in the mother tongue. Has she tried the aspirated ones yet? Dh and th and gh and ph so forth? English uses some and not others and she will figure it out quickly, I'm sure.

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Mon, Jan 26, 2009 7:00 PM
Eluned loves to nurse (now). She knows when it's time to nurse and demands it, even cries if we don't get to it fast enough.

Els didn't always love nursing. I've written elsewhere about some of our struggles. I was introduced to the breast pump early, and pumped for a full year.

Pumping is its own tiny quiet corner of hell. I don't think I can adequately describe it if you haven't done it, and if you have you know exactly what I mean. For a long time I was pumping 5 times per day, every day. I started counting down the days until I could stop pumping (for Els' first birthday) in Sept., I think.

I don't think I would have been able to pump for a full year (CA laws or no) if I hadn't started working at the university. All of the other moms in the department took me in and made it possible for me to continue, for which I am very grateful.

Because without pumping I would not have been able to continue breastfeeding. And now I'm finally seeing the payoff in my nursing relationship with Els.

Now that Els is 1 year old she can have cow's milk, so I no longer have to worry about what she'll drink when she's away from me. I packed the pump up on Christmas Eve and we spent the holiday break practicing the new pattern: cow's milk during the day, nursing evening through morning. Els wasn't sold on cow's milk at first but it seems to be growing on her.

At first I held off nursing Els during the day as long as I could, so that I wouldn't get uncomfortable when I was away from her. Those weren't easy days. Now that my body is adjusting, I let her nurse during the day on weekends again. She gets some milk, but it's more comfort nursing.

Els nurses to sleep. She nurses to sleep every night for bed, and it's the most reliable way to get her to take a nap during the day (which is why I relented on daytime nursing). I'm a tiny bit worried that she's only learned to nurse to sleep, but it's working for us right now, so I'm not going to concern myself until I need to.

And it really is working -- I'm finally getting to enjoy the fruits of my hard work. I get home after work and we cuddle on the couch for the evening's first nursing. At the end of the night we curl up on the couch again to nurse. Els wakes up briefly for one last diaper change and tooth brushing, and then I nurse her back to sleep. Sometimes I go to bed with her. At some point during the night she rolls over to nurse again, and for the rest of the night we snuggle, nursing in our sleep. If I haven't overslept too much, we wake up and nurse again before we start the day.

Comments:
Sarah: My early days with Jennifer were fraught with anxiety because after I had been given medication to dry up the milk supply, she had to learn to drink formula right away and neither of us was a happy camper.

I've often wondered how our relationship might have been different--just a few years later, laws were passed, attitudes had (somewhat) changed and, as your experience indicates) young women began to stand up for each other.

Each mother, and each child, is different and should be able to make their own choices, not adhere to some dictate of law or society.

Oops, there I go again....

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Sun, Jan 25, 2009 8:00 PM
Eluned has been working on her dismount. She started out gingerly lowering herself face down off the couch. She's gotten better and better at getting down from the couch, and now will let herself down in a variety of positions.

Yesterday she decided to attempt the black diamond: getting down from the bed.

Our bed is tall, maybe 3 feet tall. We have it pushed into the corner with the co-sleeper and other furniture blocking some of the edges, and thus far Els has 6782*************************************************************************be.00+en pretty respectful of the open edges./ I did catch her tipping over the edge of the co-sleeper -- literally, grabbed a handful of her shirt -- but otherwise we haven't had any falls.

Yesterday we saw her going for it, so Will was right there with a hand out to guide her, but we let her try it. She used everything she has learned on the couch to carefully slide down the side of the bed to the floor.

Comments:
Sarah: Ride 'em, cowgirl! You did say "dismount" did you not??

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Sat, Jan 24, 2009 5:00 PM
Eluned's definition of music is a little looser than ours -- she was rockin' out to the neighbor's car alarm.

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Fri, Jan 23, 2009 10:00 PM
This week I learned that Bertha is already teaching Eluned to help. Bertha and Kautima encourage Els to pick up the toys at the end of the day and put them back in their buckets. I am delighted, and will try to reinforce this at home. Els loves to put objects into boxes and baskets (and to take them out) so putting her toys away is a natural way for her to start helping.

Els has been helping us get her dressed by pushing her arms through the sleeves for a few weeks now. And the other night she tried to help get herself undressed for bed.

Comments:
Sarah: I'm waiting for the day you tell us that you spent 20 minutes getting her dressed...went into another room to get dressed yourself...came back and she had managed to undress herself! And it will happen when you're most in a hurry. Never fails.

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Thu, Jan 22, 2009 8:00 PM
One of Eluned's favorite new games is the pointing game: she points at things and we name them for her. It started at the zoo, but we've been playing it ever since. Els points at trees a lot.

Another game Els enjoys is clapping with our hands. One of us will hold out our hands, Els will wrap her hands around each thumb (or whatever she can get a good grip on) and smack them together. I usually give her a little boost for a louder sound.

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Tue, Jan 20, 2009 7:00 PM
Eluned is not particularly interested in the inauguration today, except for some of the clapping and cheering.

Comments:
Sarah: She will be the citizen of a better world; of that I am convinced.

Poppa: Fifty years in the future Els will look back and say I was there at the beginning; by the time President Obama finishes eight years in office, Els will be nine and have a firm grasp of the world and how all countries are interconnected politically, economically, socially and militarily. Besides, she'll have a wealth of original documents, campaign buttons, etc that she can use for research; either that or put them in a garage sale!

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Mon, Jan 19, 2009 7:00 PM
Eluned talked on my cell phone today. She plays with it all the time, but this morning when I gave it to her, she held it up to her mouth and talked in to it, then held it to her ear and talked some more.

This was first thing in the morning, so there were no cues or reminders about telephones. I guess Els just knows now what people do with a phone well enough to re-enact it. And since I don't use my cell phone around her all that often, that means she also remembered that my cell is a telephone.

We do put Els on the phone sometimes; she hung up on Nana last night. Plus she sees people using the phone at Bertha's.

Comments:
Nicky: Let me know when she learns to text! ;-)

Sarah: Truly a child of the 21st century!

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Sun, Jan 18, 2009 6:00 PM
Sarah brings up a good point. Just about everyone, upon meeting Eluned for the first time, refers to her as a boy. I don't mind. We've gotten a lot of great hand-me-down clothes from a little boy at Emerson, so it makes perfect sense that people mistake her for a boy when she's dressed in those. And the people who call her a boy when she's wearing a dress? [Shrug.] My Mom tells me most people thought I was a boy, too, when I was a baby.

I had a theory about this. I figured that parents of boys might mind this mistake a lot more than parents of girls, so people might just start referring to babies as boys to minimize offense. Then today, a little boy in the grocery store with beautiful short curly hair was greeted as a girl. So there went my theory.

Perhaps, as Sarah suggests, it's all in the hair?

Comments:
Sarah: I think it's also in the bone structure and mental acuity. People with well-defined features and the focused attention that comes with intelligence are perceived as more masculine (in our culture); soft, ill-defined, vague as feminine. I'm not saying it's correct or accurate; just that I think there's a perception filter peculiar to our culture. And perhaps some science behind it, since skull features of females are identified as more gracile than those of a man. But I majored in philosophy; so what do I know? Only a lifetime's observations/guesses/insights.

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Sat, Jan 17, 2009 5:00 PM
Eluned is really starting to enjoy books like "Pat the Bunny" that offer textured areas for her to explore. She's been showing increasing interest when we got them out and read them to her, but in the last week or so she has started opening them up herself.

Grandma got her a whole series of these books with titles like Noisy Kisses and Animal Kisses. They're all really colorful with simple drawings and a variety of textures, including at least one squeaky panel in almost every book. Els seems particularly drawn to these books recently. She traces the drawings and points to the animals' features as well as touching the textured areas.

Comments:
Sarah: Well, of course, a bright child such as she...I imagine she will be a reader before starting kindergarten.

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Thu, Jan 15, 2009 10:00 PM
Bertha and Kautima report that they heard "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy" all day long.

Comments:
Sarah: We spend months waiting for them to talk...and years hoping they'll stop long enough for us to get a word in edgewise. Pretty exciting--it's her first word, yes?

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Wed, Jan 14, 2009 10:00 PM
As you can see from the photos, Eluned still has very little hair, and what she has is that fine soft blonde baby hair. It is slowly growing in and getting thicker, though. It has finally gotten long enough in the back that Els can feel it herself. She'll reach up to her head, find a strand, and thoughtfully stroke it.

Comments:
Nicky: Both Will and I were bald until we were two! Must run in the family!

Sarah: When my daughter was little (in the 60's) I was very much against "girly" clothes, so she was dressed in miniature jeans and tee shirts, and itty-bitty sandals. However, her hair was much as you describe Els' and people kept asking me what my little boy's name was. I would get indignant and say, "She's a girl!" whereupon they would give me the eye as if to say, "Well, then, why don't you dress her as one?" My reply: why do you make assumptions based upon appearance? But, then, isn't that what we humans do, being a visually-oriented species? It's instinctive, I think, to judge by what we see, and a learned skill to look beyond that.

OK, getting off my soapbox now....

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Tue, Jan 13, 2009 9:00 PM
Leaving Eluned during the day is getting harder, not easier. I want more time with her in the morning, don't want to leave when we get to Bertha's, miss her while I'm at work, can't wait to pick her up from Bertha's and get home, and most nights now I go to bed with her.

Going back to work after my maternity leave was easy for me. I'm not sure why, exactly. The utter lack of a choice was one big factor. My investment in my career was another, I'm sure. But also, I think, my relationship with Els wasn't as developed -- breastfeeding was still a bit of a challenge, Els' communication was still limited, etc. Mostly, it was what I had to do.

Lately, even though it's still what I have to do, it's gotten harder. Now I have a kid who talks, sings, hugs, dances ...

Taking care of Els full time again over the holidays was challenging. She is in some ways as demanding as a newborn, with the added excitement of mobility. But ever since we went back after the break I'm finding it harder and harder to leave her.

Comments:
Sarah: She's such a wonderful little girl (most of the time), I understand completely. A smart person with a loveable personality and a great sense of humor. Gee, I wonder who she takes after....

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Mon, Jan 12, 2009 9:00 PM
Eluned had her 1 year appointment today. Not very eventful. We saw Dr. Zimble again, who had lots of suggestions for me and Will. Els has the beginnings of her first molar (joy) and will be getting her own toothbrush this week. Els is 19 pounds, 6 ounces and 28 1/2 inches, which is 25% for both and right along her growth curve. She had two shots today and did not cry.

When Dr. Zimble left the room, Els waved to her, but Dr. Zimble didn't see. The nurses did; they came to the door and waved back. Dr. Zimble came back by and teased that Els waved to everyone but her (and was quickly corrected).

Comments:
Sarah: A tooth! A tooth! A veritable tooth! Ah, the joys of teething..takes me back...no, let's not go there. I'm glad that she's flourishing, doing so well.

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Fri, Jan 2, 2009 9:08 AM
Happy Birthday Eluned!

Comments:
Sarah: I was thinking much the same thing....

Aunt Marilyn: Good Grief, I can't believe the day went by and I missed it already. Anyway, Els here is a belated birthday wish with all good wishes for a happy and healthy year. Kate and William enjoy this year. In 364 days you will officially be into the "terrible twos". Of course, Eluned is so precocious that she will probably reach this milestone about mid year. Love, Aunt Marilyn

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