Sick Baby

A really nasty stomach virus is going around Los Angeles, and a few weeks ago Baby M caught it. Friday night he threw up and then he threw up again Saturday morning. Unwisely, my husband and I decided to head to The Wood, a new neighborhood cafe, for Saturday brunch. Baby M threw up all over me shortly after placing our order. More vomit came out of him than seemed possible given what he had eaten that day and all I could do was hold him and grimace until it subsided. A very nice employee saw me with handfulls of soiled napkins and offered to take them off my hands. "No, no," I replied, "it's digusting." He persisted. "It's barf." That stopped him in his tracks and he brought over a garbage pail for me. After cleaning up a bit we actually stayed and ate our breakfast which was quite tasty.

We had plans to see Q-tip perform on Saturday night and ever hopeful for a night out alone we packed up Baby M and headed over to the in-laws house. We planned to eat dinner with my husbands parents and then go to the show while they watched Baby M. Baby M seemed fine, he even ate some spaghetti and peas for dinner. As we were finishing up dessert Baby M started fussing and then-- blamo! Torrents of vomit spewed out of him. This wasn't normal puking, this was the infamous projectile vomiting that you hear so much about. It was as if my son was auditioning for the remake of The Exorcist. Needless to say, we ended up skipping the concert.

The next day I came down with the bug and spent most of the day shuffling back and forth between my bed and the toilet. Thank goodness for my husband-- I can't imagine being that sick and having to care for a baby. Baby M still couldn't keep anything down and more distressing he was refusing to drink anything-- no water, no juice, no Pedialyte, not even more than a few sips breast milk. He hadn't urinated for over 12 hours. I called our pediatrician who suggested trying popsicles and said we'd need to go to the ER if he didn't start taking in liquids soon. Baby M, stubborn boy that he is, refused the popsicles too (although he was still pointing eagerly at the box of Cheerios) and so we headed off to St. John's in Santa Monica later that evening.

The St. John's staff was great, they even apologized for the 20 minutes we spent in the ER waiting room. Baby M needed IV fluids which was traumatic for everyone involved. It took my husband, myself and 2 nurses to hold Baby M down while the IV was inserted. After the IV was in he screamed at the top of his lungs for 30 minutes straight until he finally fell asleep. Even so every time he woke up he would resume screaming. We kept checking his diaper for urine and he just wasn't peeing. After 3 bags of fluids and several hours the staff sent us home telling us to come back if he hadn't peed by 6AM. Thankfully, by the time we got home his diaper was wet. He stopped vomiting and finally started taking in fluids again. A few days later he was all better. It was a rough week. A friend told me that true love is holding someone while they barf all over you without flinching. I repeatedly held Baby M while he barfed all over me, but I think I might have flinched a little. I don't think he noticed.

You've Got Mail

We have an older home with one of those mail slots that drop the mail into a box in the wall. From inside the house you lift a small door to retrieve the mail. This is a pretty nice set up because mail ends up inside the house, but not all over the entryway floor.

The mailbox has also become Baby M's favorite toys. He lifts the door, he closes the door. He takes the mail out. He puts things that aren't mail in. In the past week I have found nail clippers, a pink hippopotamus, a mini-pumpkin and some coasters in the mail box. The anticipation of mail is a big part of our day. When we hear the ca-chunk sound of letters dropping into the box we both perk up. "Should we check the mail?" I ask Baby M. He bounces up and down with glee and trots over to the mailbox. He lifts the door and happily pulls out all the letters. On cranky days I will drop in some old letters and ask him to check the mail. Sometimes we check the mail 3 or 4 times a day. Perhaps Baby M has found his calling.

Preschool Panic

I am one of the last moms in my playgroup to start looking into preschools. Many of them began touring preschools when their babies were 4 months old, and a few before the child was even born! Despite the conventional wisdom that in West LA you need to start looking at preschools before your baby's umbilical stump falls off, I told myself that I would not even start thinking about preschool until Baby M made it to the one year mark. But now Baby M is one, so its time to start figuring out the preschool process.

Women around here can get pretty crazy when it comes to preschools. I know one woman who toured 20 preschools trying to find the best fit for her son. Another woman sent a panicked email to our neighborhood mailing list when she discovered that the tours for her preschool of choice were already booked for the year. Angelenos can buy books, attend seminars and hire private consultants to help guide them through the preschool selection process. All I really wanted was a fun place not too far from home where Baby M could get used to being in a group and following directions from an adult other than myself. Of course I want the school to be safe and the teachers to be nurturing and most importantly for Baby M to enjoy his introduction to school. It seemed simple enough, but now my head is spinning-- should I go with Montessori or Waldorf? RIE or Reggio? Academic or Developmental? I know that you're supposed to pick the model that is the best fit for your child's personality, but Baby M's personality is just beginning to become evident. I have no idea what he's going to be like at 3.

My best guess at this point is that he's going to be a typical boy. Already he prefers cars to stuffed animals, points excitedly at trucks, chases balls and runs through the library screeching. I recently finished The Trouble with Boys by Peg Tyre. This excellent book explores the achievement gap between school age girls and boys and traces the problem back to boys earliest exposure to school -- preschool. The author convinced me that for the average preschool boy the following are key requirements:

1. Play based curriculum
2. Acceptance of noisy play
3. Acceptance of aggressive play, as long as not dangerous
4. Big classroom with room for running around
5. Blocks, balls, building toys
6. Plenty of free play in addition to instruction
7. Teachers help students with transitions between activities

I am still just beginning my preschool search, but I will definitely look for a school with these traits. Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be many more blog posts about preschool over the next year. Apparently if I don't get my name on a waiting list by the time he is 2, Baby M will end up being taught in a dungeon by a monkey.

Mall Rats

If we don't get out of the house at least once a day Baby M gets very cranky. We generally go to the park or library but I am always looking for interesting places to take Baby M, preferably places that are nearby and free. Last week we did a free trial class at Gymboree. Baby M had a blast climbing over the mats, chasing after balls and blowing bubbles. He especially liked climbing headfirst into an inner tube and then curling up like a bug in the middle. I considered signing him up for their program, but it is $74 a month plus a one time $50 membership fee which is a little more than I wanted to spend. However, once the weather gets bad $74 a month to avoid seeing Mr. Crankypants might be worth it. In addition to the weekly class the Gymboree membership also includes "free play" times so we could visit a couple of times a week.

Another fun excursion we had recently was to Westside Pavilion. This mall is often overrun with stroller pushing moms and nannies, but now that school and pre-school has started up it is a little less crazy. I think mall activity is in a lull before the holiday madness starts up. Anyway, we started out at the Three Cheeky Monkeys toy store where we bought some stomp rockets for a friend's upcoming 4th birthday and Baby M got to play with some wooden trains, ride a Rody and laugh at a wacky puppet. Next we headed over to the food court so Baby M could toddle around on a giant banana and crawl through an enormous soda cup. This was his first time in the mall play area; up until now I've felt that he was to little to hold his own against sugar crazed 2 year olds, but he did fine, screaming with joy and cautiously avoiding the high traffic areas. Then we walked by the pet store to watch the puppies tumbling around in the shredded newspaper and finally ducked into Barnes and Noble to read a few stories. Baby M happily fell asleep on the way home. Sucessful outing!

Baby M is 1 Year Old -- That's WILD!

Baby M is 1 year old. I know I am supposed to say, "I can't believe it's been a year already" but it really does seem like it has been a year since we brought him home from the hospital. Yes the last few months have flown by, but I remember back to last year when we measured Baby M's age in days and looked forward to weekly milestones that seemed to take forever to arrive. We waited for his colic to "peak" and eagerly counted up to week 8, week 10, week 12 , until finally (week 16?) he started crying a little less and smiling a little more. There were long days when I would look at the clock and think, "only 5 more hours until bedtime." Actually, there are still days that I do that.

We celebrated Baby M's first birthday last weekend with a simple party at Lindberg Park in Culver City. In Los Angeles kid birthday parties can quickly go overboard with bounce houses, petting zoos, ice sculptures, etc. I certainly had no intention of throwing that kind of party, but I did want to do something more than my typical party which consists of burgers on the grill in the back yard. Every party planning guide instructs you to start with a theme so that's where I started. Initially I proposed a theme of Asian Pop Culture. I had this crazy idea that I could somehow re-create MOCA's Murakami opening party on a 1 year old scale by shopping at Giant Robot and Mitsuwa. My husband gently suggested that this might be a little overly ambitious. So I considered a variety of other themes including Ugly Dolls (discarded after they were featured too prominently in Cookie Magazine) and Robots (discarded after a friend had a robot themed party for her toddler which included her husband dressed up as a robot in a costume that, no kidding, took him 20 hours to make) and finally settled on Where the Wild Things Are. I love this classic children's book and the mischievous little boy in the story has always reminded me of Baby M. Despite the facts that this year is author Maurice Sendak's 80th birthday and Spike Jonze is currently working on a live-action version of Where the Wild Things Are, there was very little available in the way of party decorations, favors, etc. I ended up making custom invitations and bubble labels using my computer and found an ornament from Hallmark to use as a cake topper. It wasn't a ton of work, but my tip to other slacker moms out there is to look through the party themes available at your local party store and then just choose from those. Of course, as my husband repeatedly pointed out the party was really about Baby M and our friends and family probably would have had just as much fun if the party had been themeless. Still, I am pleased that we ushered in his first year with a bit of fun and originality.

Sleep Training Wimp

So I have a confession to make. My almost one year old baby does not sleep through the night. He wakes crying 2-3 times a night and I grudgingly make my way down the hall and nurse him back to sleep. He does not nap willingly and in fact must be nursed to sleep on my queen sized bed. If I try to get up after he falls asleep or even detach his greedy little mouth from my breast he will wake, sit up, scream and refuse to go back to sleep. I don't like to admit any of this and try not to bring up the topic of sleep, although after a year of not sleeping I suspect the bags under my eyes and a tendency to sound like George W might be tipping people off to the fact that I have failed at teaching my child to sleep. (Today I told an acquaintance that I was afraid of Baby M getting "strampled" on the playground, my own little Bushism combining "stampeded" and "trampled").

It's not that I don't know what needs to be done; I've read plenty of sleep books and gotten all sorts of advice from well meaning friends and strangers. Part of the problem is that there is always a good reason to postpone the sleep training-- we're leaving on a trip, or just got back from a trip or Baby M is sick or teething, etc. etc. Another part of the problem is that Baby M is a particularly stubborn baby who really doesn't like the idea of going to sleep. And the final part of the problem is that I am a wimp who can't let my baby cry. Yes I have read The No Cry Sleep Solution and the Baby Whisperer's "Pick Up Put Down" method and they do not work for us. Baby M does not care if I am in the room, rubbing his back or singing him a lullaby, he will jump up and down shaking his crib rail and screaming until he chokes. Perhaps the old PUPD method would have worked when Baby M was smaller, but I cannot repeatedly lift a 23 lb baby up and down without throwing my back out. I really wanted to believe Jodi Mindell's claim that after breaking the nurse to sleep connection my baby would be sleeping through the night within 2 weeks, but after months of reading Goodnight Moon and putting my baby into the crib awake, he still is up a few hours after he goes to sleep. So I'm left with Weissbluth's "Extinction / Graduated Extinction" or the Sleepeasy Solution both of which require some crying.

I know a bit of crying is not going to hurt Baby M, and if it helps all of us get some sleep it may be worth it. I admit that I am more often grouchy and short tempered because I am tired. And since I have to nap with Baby M that means when he is awake I spend time doing chores instead of interacting with him. As plenty of people have pointed out he used to cry when I put him in his carseat and I still just gave him a kiss, turned up the radio and went on my way. But somehow the idea of him alone in the dark, crying out for me and not getting an answer just kills me. I remember being a young child and calling out for my mother, if she hadn't come I would have been devastated. Plus, as someone who was prone to histrionics as a teenager I know how lousy you feel after sobbing uncontrollably for an hour-- puffy eyes, snotty nose, your whole face hurts.

But even with these mixed feelings, every few weeks I tell my husband, "okay, this weekend we're doing sleep training" but every week I wimp out. I wonder what this means for my parenting skills? Am I already a bad parent? Am I going to be one of those mothers who can't discipline her kid? Am I going to end up with a bratty Baby M? I mean if I can't teach my baby to sleep, which is a biological imperative, how am I ever going teach him to share on the playground or say thank you or stand up for the funny looking weird kid that everyone else teases?

Snack Trap

Every few months a fad sweeps through my weekly playgroup. A new product appears and suddenly every mom has to have it. First there was the JJ Cole Essentials Blanket, which caught on because it really is fabulous. It's water resistant, folds up nicely into a little bag and is machine washable. Then there was the prickly purple ball from Gymboree and the Little Tykes stroller car. The latest trend is the Snack Trap, a small cup with a unique slitted lid that allows babies to retrieve snacks but prevents them from spilling Cheerios all over the floor. Additionally, the Snack Trap allows a baby to carry around his snack and feed himself whenever he gets hungry. At this point I am the only mom in the group still feeding her kid out of a tiny Tupperware bowl with a snap on lid. Meanwhile, Baby M has turned into a little scavenger, wandering from blanket to blanket, picking up abandoned Snack Traps and gorging himself on Cheerios. So I decided it was about time we got our own Snack Trap, if for no other reason than to give the other tots equal opportunity to pilfer Baby M's snack stash.

After failed trips to Target and Babies R Us, I finally tracked down Snack Traps at the Right Start in Westside Pavilion. I rinsed out the little green cup, filled it with Baby M's favorite mix of Cheerios and Gerber Puffs and headed out to lunch with some old co-workers. I settled Baby M into the restaurant high chair and gave him his cup of treats. He happily thrust his little hand through the lid and started pulling out Cheerios. However, he did not eat the cereal, he just threw it on the floor. Then it became a game to get every last treat out of the cup, with no interest at all in eating the snacks. After a few minutes he learned how to use the flaps on the lid to flick the Cheerios at my friends and our extremely patient waiter (who was given an excellent tip and many apologies). Depending on where he ends up falling on the nerd-jock spectrum Baby M is going to be really good at either Tiddlywinks or Quarters. Needless to say, for now we'll confine our Snack Trap use to the park where no one will be bothered by flying Cheerios and where there are plenty of birds and squirrels to clean up after us.

Boone Children's Gallery

Today Baby M and I went to the Boone Children's Gallery at LACMA. The gallery is a large room with tons of activities for kids and it's free! The current exhibit is called Construct and there are tables for drawing and painting, big easels for painting 4 foot high masterpieces, giant foam building blocks and more small wooden blocks than I have ever seen in once place. At 10 months, Baby M is a little too young for most of the activities although he loved climbing around the giant foam blocks and taking the wooden blocks off the shelf. As more kids arrived, including at least 3 Zoes (who knew Zoe was such a popular name?), the block area started to get a little too dangerous for Baby M so we walked around and looked at the creations by other kids and read a book called Building a House.

While at the gallery I signed Baby M up for NexGen, a LACMA program that offers free general admission to anyone under 17 and one accompanying adult. What a great program! After we finished at the Boone Children's Gallery we browsed the gift shop at the Page Museum (and validated our parking), crawled around on the grass in Hancock park, grabbed some lunch and then headed back into LACMA to check out a few of the galleries. We looked at some Picasso's, a Rothko, and a bunch of Kandinsky's before Baby M started getting fussy and it was time to go home. This was a fun outing and I think we'll do it again soon. I think it would be even more fun for slightly older kids.

Traveling & The Car Seat

We just got back from our first big trip with Baby M-- airplane, hotel room, rental car, the whole enchilada. Baby M did quite well. He didn't cry at all on the airplane, although he didn't sleep either and was constantly climbing between our laps and the floor. Unfortunately, he also did not sleep much in the hotel room which resulted in someone brushing her teeth with diaper cream instead of toothpaste. Yech! Despite the fact that he was sleep deprived, Baby M maintained a relatively sunny disposition throughout the long weekend which included a rehearsal dinner, a wedding, a hike through the forest and countless meals where small town restaurants tried with varying success to accommodate 20 out of town diners.

In preparing for the trip I went back and forth on whether or not to bring our car seat. Most people I spoke with and most of the information I read online overwhelmingly said I should take my own seat. I heard horror stories about the vomit-covered, recalled, broken car seats being offered by the rental car companies. But there were two things pushing me towards renting a car seat: (1) My car seat was professionally installed in my non-LATCH vehicle. I'm not sure that I could get it out, let alone put it back in after our 4 day trip; (2) My Britax Marathon is huge and I hate traveling with lots of luggage. Even on my 3 week honeymoon to Europe all I took was a carry on bag. So we decided not to bring our car seat, but even so we still ended up needing to check our bags. Babies need a lot of stuff-- between our suitcases, stroller, baby and diaper bag we just barely had enough hands between the 2 of us to get through the airport. How does anyone travel with more than 1 kid? And take 2 car seats? I'm baffled. And it turns out my aversion to checking luggage is well founded, Horizon airlines managed to loose both of our bags. Eight hours later the bags showed up, apparently they did some sight-seeing in Portland.

We had reserved a car and convertible car seat from National and when we showed up at the counter the woman working there all but threw a blue Cosco Convertible car seat at me. The seat was covered with crumbs, but not disgustingly dirty. Still, I wonder how much time it would have taken to vacuum out the seat, I mean they vacuum the cars anyway, right? When I made the reservation the representative had assured me that although National, along with every other major rental chain, would not install the car seat due to liability issues, they would provide the car seat manual so that we could install it ourselves. When we asked for the manual we were informed that it was lost and that this was the only car seat they had, so we'd just have to figure it out on our own. Eventually, after about 30 minutes, we did and were on our way.

Really, it was not a terrible experience, but I wonder why some car rental company doesn't try to differentiate themselves as the "family friendly" car rental company. There are plenty of families traveling and with some states requiring car seats for kids up to 80 lbs there should be quite a few travelers needing child seats. I would definitely pay a bit more to have a certified car seat installer install a clean, functioning car seat in the car and have it ready to go when we arrived.

The Old In/Out

For several weeks now Baby M has been very big on taking things OUT-- blocks out of the wagon, pajamas out of the drawer, Tupperware out of the cupboard. Lately however, he has gotten very keen on putting things IN. Of course, he has not really mastered the concept of putting things back IN to the place that they came OUT of. Hence, I am constantly finding blocks with my dish towels, remote controls in the potted plants and pacifiers in the mail slot. Occasionally he does seem to make a connection between an object and where it belongs, like the time he started throwing the stack of clean diapers into his diaper pail or the time he took my dirty socks out of the hamper and put them into the basket of clean laundry waiting to be folded. He didn't quite get it right, but I had to give him an A for effort.

In my multitude of parenting books, I read that constantly restricting babies from exploring would result in fearful children and that obsessively tidying up after your child could cause low self-esteem. I think the idea was that if your baby spends all this time carefully distributing his toys around his room, it is disrespectful to sweep them all back into the toy chest in one fell swoop; you should admire his work. Since I'm the type of person who has a hard time asking for extra ketchup packets, I want to do all I can to raise a confident child. Although sometimes I have to wonder if I have taken this idea of "letting babies explore" a little too far. As part of my baby proofing efforts I consolidated all of the dangerous materials into a few cupboards so now Baby M pretty much has the run of the house. What this means is that by the end of the day my kitchen floor is covered in Tupperware, the living room is strewn with magazines and the bedrooms look like Mervyn's after a post-holiday sale. What do you think, will Baby M be doomed to a pusillanimous life if he doesn't get to throw old newspapers all over the floor?

Walking in LA

We are lucky to live in a community where there are lots of shops and resources within walking distance. Actually, it is not just luck, a walkable community was a priority for us and we gave up living in a bigger or nicer house so that we could live in our neighborhood. I try do most of my errands on foot-- I can walk to the grocery store, the drug store, the library, the post office, the park, coffee shops, restaurants, etc. Both Baby M and I much prefer the stroller to the car and the hassle that comes with getting a baby in and out of a car seat.

Most people are perfectly nice when they see Baby M and I waiting on the corner to cross the street. They smile at his pudgy little feet propped up on the stroller bar and laugh as he waves his Tag Along Lion Chime. But more often than you would expect, drivers yell or honk their horn at us as we cross in the crosswalk with the light. Do these people not remember Driver's Ed? Pedestrians have the right of way. Is the extra 10 seconds they have to wait to make a right turn really enough time to bring on a blistering case of road rage? And besides that, do they realize that they are yelling and honking at a baby?!?

Today we saw particularly egregious case of driving gone bad. My husband, Baby M, our dog and I were walking back from getting a cup of coffee at Peet's coffee near Lincoln and Mindanao. We were waiting at the corner where the 90 freeway hits Mindanao. The light turned green, the little walking man started flashing and we began making our way across the intersection. When I was about half way across the intersection a car sped around the corner just inches from my toes. I turned around incredulously to look at my husband, and to, perhaps get some sympathy from the next driver. You know something along the lines of "Oh my gosh that asshole driver almost took out your whole family. I can't believe that guy!" Instead the woman yelled at me to hurry up and get out of the damn intersection. Nice. It is people like this who give Los Angeles a bad rap.

The rest of the way home my husband and I brainstormed about what to do about inconsiderate drivers. My husband rides the bus or bikes to work most days so he has his fair share of encounters with idiot drivers too. We thought about publicly shaming them on a web site called assholedriver.com. Ofcourse that url is already being used by a porn site, but I did come across this site allowing users to post pictures and comments about asshole drivers they encounter. It's in beta and seems to be focused on New York, but still looks promising. Maybe I'll start keeping my cell phone handy at intersections and post a few pictures of my own.

American Idol Live

On Monday my husband was given some last minute tickets to American Idol Live, the concert tour of the top 10 American Idol finalists. His company has a box at the Staples Center and the tickets were a reward for receiving an outstanding performance review. He called me at 5pm to tell me he had tickets for the 7pm show. Even if we had a regular babysitter, 2 hours probably wouldn't have been enough notice, so we decided to take Baby M to his first big concert. I was a little nervous, but knew that the box had glass walls and a sitting area with a couch and some comfy chairs, so I figured we'd be okay even if Baby M was fussy.

We got downtown just after 7 and parked in a $7 lot that was one block east of the $25 lot (yay us!). I put Baby M in his sling and we walked over to the Staples Center. We got settled in the box and were immediately concerned about the noise. Concerts in the Staples Center are LOUD! I kept Baby M's ears covered the best I could and wished I had thought ahead and brought some earplugs for him. Initially Baby M was a little apprehensive and kept his head buried in my shoulder for the first few performers (or perhaps he was just trying to tune out a terrible set by Ramiele), but by the time Michael Johns rose up out of the floor singing "We Will Rock You" he was having a grand time. He was mesmerized by Carly's version of "Bring Me to Life", bounced along to Brooke's "1234" and munched Cheerios (the only food he'll willingly eat these days) during Jason Castro's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Halfway through the concert there was an intermission which seemed to be a 20 minute commercial for Guitar Hero, but it gave Baby M a chance to crawl around the box a bit so it worked out. He fell asleep during David Archuleta's performance and amazingly slept through David Cooks' rock heavy set and the full ensemble finale. Even though American Idols Live was probably not the concert we would have chosen to see, I think all 3 of us enjoyed it. If we ever get the box seat tickets again, I wouldn't hesitate to take Baby M along.

Mean Baby at the Library

Since it has been so hot lately Baby M and I have been spending some time at the local libraries. We haven't been to a story time yet, but every library has at least one scheduled during the week. Baby M is not quite ready to sit and listen to a story, but he loves crawling around and pulling books off the shelves. These days Baby M needs a lot of space to explore and our little 1940's era house just isn't cutting it.

So far my favorite library is the LAPL Playa Vista branch. The library has a large children's wing with plenty of board books and also wooden puzzles, large foam blocks and funny little velvet cars. We went on a Monday morning and there was only one other child in the room which meant Baby M could crawl around without any danger of being run over by an older kid. The Mar Vista branch is also nice. The children's room is much smaller, but it has lots of board books in large tin buckets and a built in bench that is the perfect height for Baby M to cruise on.

Today we went to the Main Branch of the Santa Monica library. I spent a lot of time in this library pre-Baby M because it has a much larger selection of titles than my local branch and it's really just a lovely space to be in. There is a garden patio, a cafe and lots of natural light. But today was the first time that I'd ventured into the children's area. There are no toys and the board books are not really baby accessible; they sit on a low shelf along a main walkway and I'm concerned that Baby M would get stepped on while he picked out his books. On the plus side, there is a huge open activity area where Baby M was able to crawl to his heart's content. Without any doorways, heating grates, tables or chairs to dodge he was really able to build up some speed. He was like Baby Flash, or whichever superhero has the power of super-speed. While Baby M happily wandered around a little boy, maybe 3 years old, came into the room and was very excited to point out the baby. He got down on his hands and knees to mimic Baby M's crawling. This got Baby M very excited and he made a bee-line for the little boy, hands and knees pounding, head wobbling, screeching like a banshee. The little boy stood up, said "Mean Baby" and stomped out of the room. Completely unconcerned my "Mean Baby" ambled off to try to pick up some shadows by the window.

UCLA Baby Lab

Right after I brought Baby M home from the hospital I read What's Going On In There by Lise Eliot. The book, written by a neuroscientist, describes how an infant's brain is formed and how each sense develops. In addition to providing details on the physical structures of the brain and the role genetics and environment play in development, the author also explained many of the experiments used to gather the information. I really enjoyed the book and although it was a bit heavy on the science, it was a nice break from the practical infant care guides I had been reading at the time. In particular I found many of the experiments fascinating. Did you know that whether or not a 4 year old can delay eating a marshmallow is one of the biggest predictors of success later in life? I've already got "Run marshmallow experiment on Baby M" penciled in for 2011.

Since I'm already planning on doing my own experiments on Baby M, it's no surprise that when I received a card in the mail from the UCLA Baby Lab looking for test subjects I said "Sign us up!" Don't worry, there are no experimental drugs involved or weird psychological tests. We went in for our first study this week which has to do with whether or not infants will pay attention to illusory figures. Baby M just had to watch a TV screen for about 15 minutes and an eye tracking device monitored where he looked. Sometimes he looked at the illusory figure and sometimes he did not, which the researcher said was pretty typical. Baby M also had some time to warm up to the researchers and play with some of the toys in the lab. All of the researchers were very nice and happy to share information about their research. I would definitely go back if another study opens up.

There was no compensation for participating, although we did get free parking at UCLA and a cute T-shirt for Baby M. My husband wonders why anyone would participate, but he has never stayed home all day with Baby M. As most stay at home moms will tell you, anything that gets you out of the house for a few hours is worthwhile. Especially if it is free (most structured activities and even some playgroups cost $20 a visit), allows Baby M to see something new and allows Mom to have a bit of grown-up conversation.

Baby Talk

A few weeks ago my mother-in-law sent me a clip from Good Morning America regarding the importance of talking to your baby. Studies show that a child's success in school is related to how much parents talk to that child, which is not particularly surprising. What is surprising is that experts recommend you say 17,000 words to your child every day. That's a lot of words! Even before I had a baby I rarely spoke 17,000 words a day. The clip also highlighted a product invented by a presumably OCD mom that clips on to your baby and counts the number of words he hears each day, kind of like a pedometer for words. If my SAT prep serves me correctly, I believe that would be verbometer or a logometer, but this mom called her device LENA (Language Environment Analysis).

After watching this story I became semi-obsessed with the 17,000 words. Not obsessed enough to invent a verbometer, but obsessed enough to worry every time I sat surreptitiously reading the newspaper while Baby M banged his toy bus on the floor. I wondered if I should be reading the paper out loud. But wouldn't that break his concentration? I tried increasing the number of children's books I read to Baby M but, newly mobile, he was not very interested in sitting around listening to me read. Every book I pulled out he either grabbed and chewed or grabbed and started ripping apart. I mentioned the 17,000 words to a friend of mine and she, being much more practical than me, immediately calculated that given the number of hours her son is awake, she would have to say about 28 words every minute to meet the goal. She then counted the number of words in her son's favorite book (she is also perhaps a little more obsessive than me) and determined that she reads 1400 words in about 10 minutes. Given 40 minutes of reading time plus some good narration of her daily activities, maybe she could pull it off.

The only book I read daily to Baby M is Goodnight Moon, which has 300 words. He is also a fan of Hello Bee, Hello Me with a paltry 25 words. I do try to narrate my day, but I've realized I don't do a whole lot. Most of my day is spent watching Baby M do stuff, which I suppose I could narrate-- "Here you are chewing my flip flop", "On look you're banging a spoon on the floor." Sometimes he'll watch me unload the dishwasher and I can actually get quite a few words out of that. The other thing I've noticed is that I frequently just mimic what Baby M says. I think I read mimicry is good for his self-esteem, but maybe he will end up thinking "blah-bli- phtttt- blap" is a word. Maybe he already does. So I'm becoming more conscious of the words I say to Baby M. I find myself often saying "I see you Baby," since Baby M likes to crawl off to another room and then turn around to make sure I am still watching. If I stopped there, that would be fine; "see" and "baby" are perfectly good words, but no, I don't stop there. You see, I cannot say "I see you Baby" without following it with "shaking that ass." Ten to one Baby M's first word is "ass".

Baby proofing

I've found that most parents fall into one of two camps when it comes to baby proofing. The first group identifies every possible danger, hires professionals to install gates, cabinet locks and hideous table bumpers. The second group fully intends to baby proof their home but suddenly finds their child mobile and ends up covering up outlets and hiding power cords moments before curious little hands seize them. Not surprisingly, I fall into the second camp.

Baby M is now 8 months old and he crawls, pulls up, cruises and even climbs. I am a little surprised at how quickly he progressed from tentative creeping to full speed ahead, multi-directional mobility. To give myself credit, I did make a few attempts at baby proofing before he started pulling up. We replaced our entertainment center, which consisted of precariously balanced baskets, glass shelves and a home-assembled Ikea TV stand with something a little more sturdy. I covered the outlets. I bought some furniture wall straps, but didn't install them because I couldn't figure out how to use the stud finder. I also bought some no-drill cabinet locks, but they are so difficult to open that we end up leaving them hanging unlocked on the cabinet handles. Baby M finds them irresistible and uses them to pull the cabinets open usually hitting himself on the head in the process. Luckily he hasn't shown any interest in actually taking anything out of the cupboards yet, just opening them. I guess I should only give myself half-credit for those last two.

But for the most part, I am finding out what I need to move / secure / gate off as we go along. At this point all of the little knick-knacks, candles, picture frames, etc. on my lower shelves have been moved and now sit on my kitchen counter until I can find a better place to put them. They have been replaced with random baby-friendly objects. Our shelves now feature a half-full plastic water bottle, an empty oatmeal container, a red ball and a variety of teething toys. Any dreams I ever had of being featured in Architectural Digest are over. Power strips have been quickly shoved behind file cabinets and only magazines I don't mind seeing shredded are on the coffee table. We've learned to keep the bathroom doors closed.

And there have been a few items that I didn't get to in time. During a recent cold snap our heater came on unexpectedly. Baby M crawled across the floor register, as he had done dozens of times, but this time is was hot and he ended up with a grid pattern seared into his hand. We're lucky he wasn't burned over more of his body. Its a horrible feeling to know that you didn't keep your child safe.

On a lighter note, I've also found it necessary to baby proof myself. Yesterday I was standing in the kitchen when I suddenly found myself without pants. Baby M had been trying to pull up on my legs but ended up pantsing me instead. Neither of us was very happy; Baby M did not accomplish his goal of standing up and I did not achieve my goal of wearing pants. I guess from now on I will wear a belt.

How to make a baby laugh

Baby M is often a bit serious these days which makes the laughs we do get all the more fun. Here are the top 5 things that make Baby M laugh:

1. Blowing raspberries on his belly
2. Being carried around on Daddy's shoulders
3. Watching the dog roll around to scratch her back
4. Mommy's silly top-of-the-head ponytail
5. The phrase "Peanut, peanut butter--- jelly" when sung with a big dramatic pause before the "jelly"

Baby bites dog

Baby M has been crawling for a couple of weeks now and he is getting faster and more confident by the day. Gone are the days when I could plop him down in the center of the rug with a toy and expect to find him there when I returned. In fact yesterday I lost him momentarily when I left him playing happily in his room and ran into the office to grab a pen. When I got back 30 seconds later he was gone. After a brief moment of panic I found him hiding behind the glider rocker. He thought hiding from Mommy was a riot and began laughing like a loon.

This new milestone means some changes for me, but I think our dog may be having the hardest time adjusting. Up until now all interaction between Baby M and our dog, a Lab-German Shepherd mix, has been closely monitored by me. Thankfully our dog is very mellow and has patiently allowed Baby M to "pet" her, which really means pull her tail, pinch her back, chew her feet and attempt to climb on top of her. I am always right there, scratching her ears and making sure Baby M doesn't get to rough. Now, however, Baby M decides when he wants some doggy-time, and it is pretty much all the time. He chases the dog all over the house hoping to get a handful of hair. Our poor puppy runs from room to room, hides behind furniture, until finally, Baby M's persistence wears her down and she whines to be let out. I know this has been a rough few months for our dog-- we used to go on long walks every day and now she is lucky to get walked once a week. We'll try to give her a little extra attention this week so she knows she is still loved.

Mother's Day

So Sunday was my first official Mother's Day. Last year I was about 5 months pregnant on Mother's Day and just starting to show, so I did end up getting a few "Happy Mother's Day" wishes, but I really don't think they are merited until you can actually hold your child in your arms. Back then Baby M was not even known as Baby M yet. At the time I was still trying to convince my husband that North was the perfect name for our firstborn son. Does everyone go through that "unique" name phase? Thankfully I came to my senses and didn't end up as an entry on Baby's Named A Bad Bad Thing.

Last year I made brunch reservations for us and both sets of grandparents at Shanghai Red's in Marina Del Rey. It is normally a very nice restaurant, but the Mother's Day Brunch was a complete mad-house. I waited in line 20 minutes for a waffle, got elbowed over the last piece of salmon and was vomited on in the restroom. I was expecting this year to be substantially better, but I got a little worried on Saturday night when my husband said to me, "I think I'm in trouble. I forgot that you're a mom." I was shocked. Most days I feel like all I am is a mom, what with all the feeding and diapering and bathing, etc. It is actually sort of comforting to know that my husband sees me as more than just Baby M's mother. On the other hand, it would be nice to know that he recognizes how much work it takes to care for Baby M.

Well, my husband and Baby M stepped up and surprised me on Sunday morning with breakfast in bed. They had loaded up a tray with orange juice, flowers, 3 greasy breakfast sandwiches and hash-browns from Jack-in-the-Box. (Three because they didn't know which one I liked, not because I'm a glutton.) Fast food breakfast sandwiches are one of my guilty pleasures, along with Gossip Girl and old George Michael ballads, so I couldn't have been happier. My husband even signed the card "Baby M" proving that my blog has at least 1 reader. All in all it was a lovely Mother's Day.

Mom or Man?

A few months ago a friend of mine with 2 small sons said to me, "Do you ever wish you lived with your mom instead of your husband?" At the time I looked at her a bit quizzically. I mean, I love my mom and all, but there is only so much re-hashing of Dancing With the Stars that I can take and besides, I'm married to a pretty cool guy. But after spending a week at my parent's house while my husband was on a business trip I totally get it.

It was great. My mom came and got Baby M when he was crying inconsolably at 5AM. She cleaned up after he spit peas all over the dining room. She held him so I could try on more than one pair of jeans at the mall. Plus she did all the normal mom stuff like cooking dinner and doing my laundry. Not once did she "dress" the baby and then claim not to notice the unsnapped onesie crotch flaps flopping around on top of Baby M's pants. I don't think I truly appreciated my mom until I became a parent myself. And after a week of having her mother me and Baby M the lumpy scarf I knit for her as a Mother's Day gift seems woefully inadequate.

Now that I'm back home I find being alone with Baby M for 11 hours a day a bit overwhelming. My back is sore since no one is around to help with the heavy lifting (Baby M is nearly 20 lbs and has yet to outgrow his penchant for being held all day). On the plus side, I haven't had to hear about any ballroom dancers, smart 5th graders or wannabee pop stars. And I guess it is nice to have my husband back too, even though he is watching Lost while I scrub sweet potatoes off of the piano.

Not the brightest bulb on the block

That would me, not Baby M, although he did spend the better part of the afternoon playing with a slotted spoon. However, I think that is just because he's a baby, not due to any dimness on his part. I'm the one who seems to have a short circuit these days.

I admit that I have had my share of forgetfulness and inattention brought on my months of sleep deprivation, but up until now I felt that my reasoning skills remained generally in tact. Well, no more. Today I had a serious case of Mommy Brain (and not the good kind that helps with empathy and multi-tasking).

Baby M loves to splash around in the sink, but he is getting too big to hold over the sink comfortably so today I had the inspired idea to let him splash around with a bowl of water on the kitchen floor. I sat him down with a big Tupperware bowl containing a few inches of water. I expected the floor to get a bit wet from his splashing, but I did not foresee what would have been obvious to my former self-- Baby M immediately picked up the bowl and dumped the contents all over himself and the floor. I felt like a complete moron, but on the up side, the floor got mopped this week.

Hunger Strike

Okay, so it's not exactly a hunger strike since Baby M still nurses like a champ, but he is refusing all solid food and has been ever since I first tried to tempt him with some rice cereal three and half weeks ago. I find this turn of events particularly surprising for two reasons. First off for the past few months Baby M has put anything and everything in his mouth. I have uttered "telephones are not for eating", "our friends are not for eating" and "the dog is not for eating" more times than I can count. Secondly both my husband and I eat just about everything. Really. We eat red meat and carbs, seafood and hot dogs, ice cream and cotton candy. You will never have a problem accommodating us at a dinner party. Naturally we thought Baby M would follow in our gastronomical footsteps. But, alas, he seems to be forging his own path.

So far we've tried rice cereal, avocados, bananas and pears. Every feeding session starts out the same, with Baby M screaming as we strap him into his high chair (this reaction is common to any contraption with straps-- car seats, strollers, etc.) After a few choruses of The Hokey Pokey and some fun games with Mommy's ponytail Baby M is in a good enough mood to try some food. Every spoonful is preceded by an elaborate spoon ballet with Battlestar Galactica inspired sound effects and met with a grimace and spitting out of the offending substance. Lately Baby M has taken to stuffing his bib into his mouth in a preemptive strike against eating. I sense he may be a stubborn child.

Our pediatrician says not to worry and to just keep on trying to feed him a couple of times a day. In the meantime I guess I'll just work on my Hokey Pokey.

Parasomnia and Nightmares

I am reading yet another sleep book (Sleeping Through the Night by Jodi Mindell). I know I keep saying that I need to quit reading these parenting books, but I just can't stop myself. This particular book is written by an associate director of a sleep disorders center and now I am convinced that Baby M has parasomnia.

Baby M has not been sleeping for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time during the night so I've gotten into the habit of napping with him in the afternoon. He nearly always wakes up from his nap crying inconsolably, even when I am lying right there next to him. He doesn't seem to notice me when I pat his back, say his name or even pick him up. According to the book, this could be a case of Confusional Arousal, which is a mild form of parasomnia and apparently very common. The author's advice is to just leave him alone.

Initially I wondered if Baby M could be having nightmares. I can still recall my childhood nightmares and remember crying out for my parents in a panic. My parents generally found my nightmares hilarious, although to their credit, they saved their laughter for the following morning and did their best to offer comfort and a sympathetic ear in the middle of the night. However, I will always remember the night my mother couldn't stop giggling when I described the "sponge-nose bandit" nightmare. I dreamed that my brother had a kitchen sponge on his face where his nose should have been. An evil sponge salesman cut off my brother's sponge-nose so that he could sell it which resulted in my brother's death. Looking back I can see how a 4 year old tearfully explaining how her brother's nose was a highly sought after sponge is funny, but at the time my mother's laughter was the exactly the opposite of what I needed. I don't have too many items on my "Things my parents did that I'll never do" list because they were pretty good parents, but laughing at my child's nightmares is one of them.

Baby Legs

I heard about Baby Legs, the funky baby leg-warmers that come in a million different colors and patterns, back when I was still pregnant and thought they sounded like a great idea. They promised to keep baby's legs warm, make diaper changes easier and protect little knees once baby starts crawling. Plus they are super-cute. I fully intended to pick up a pair for Baby M but shopping for baby leg-warmers moved to the bottom of priority list once Baby M was born.

So I was excited to see that Mechie, a new children's boutique on Venice Blvd that happens to be on our afternoon walking route, carried a good selection of Baby Legs. I picked up a cool striped pair for Baby M.

A few days later I got a chance to try them out and pulled the Baby Legs on along with a red onesie. Most of the photos I'd seen show the leg warmers going up pretty high on the baby's thigh with just a thin strip of skin showing between the sock and the diaper. Well, I could barely get the leg warmers up over Baby M's knees. Now Baby M is a big boy. He measures consistently above the 90th percentile in both height and weight and has been called "sturdy", "hefty" and "solid." Now it is obvious that we should also call him "thunder thighs".

Even though they didn't look the way I had expected I was not ready to give up on the Baby Legs yet. Besides, they were still cute in a weird, Flashdance kind of way. I carried Baby M out to the living room where my husband and his friends were watching a basketball game. They took one look at Baby M and asked "So is he going to Jazzercise?" My husband, appalled, said that Baby M looked like Richard Simmons and demanded that I remove the leg warmers and put him in some proper pants. So the Baby Legs are back in the drawer for now, but I'm not giving up on them. Once Baby M starts moving those thighs might thin out and if not, maybe we'll find a Mommy & Me Jazzercise class. There's got to be one out there somewhere.

Shhh... He's Not Sleeping

So just about every new parent has a story that starts, "I was so sleep deprived I...[fill in the blank] ." Maybe Mom put the diaper on over the onesie or Dad drove to work in a pressed shirt and pajama bottoms. This week I made spaghetti for dinner and instead of opening up a jar of spaghetti sauce I cooked up a nice batch of spaghetti and meatballs with Garlic Lover's Salsa. What's even more telling is that my husband and I diligently ate this concoction without noticing anything was amiss until I threw the jar into the recycling bin after dinner.

Baby M is nearly 6 months old now and not anywhere close to sleeping through the night. He is still up 2 or 3 times a night. We have had the occasional night with only one waking-- to be precise we've had exactly 3 of them. I recall those nights fondly and wish for their quick return. As Oz pointed out her blog Knocked Up, people always want to know if your baby is sleeping through the night yet and judge your baby (or you) based on the answer. The older Baby M gets, the more inadequate I feel when I have to admit that, no, he is not sleeping through the night. And aside from feeling inadequate I am also feeling dead tired. So I am going to stop telling people exactly how often Baby M wakes up and stop explaining all of the strategies we've tried to get him to sleep longer. I am going to follow Oz's lead, answer that he sleeps like a baby and leave it at that.

I'm Disgusting

Since becoming a parent I have done many things that I would have found repellent in my former life. I've smelled Baby M's bottom to see if he needed a diaper change and stuck my finger in his diaper if the smell test was inconclusive. I've picked buggers out of his nose. I've spent days in a spit-up covered sweatshirt with unwashed hair. I'm regularly soaked with drool, but today I reached a new low.

Baby M & I went to the Bridge theater at the Howard Hughes Center for the Mommy & Me screening of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (good movie, but not as much fun as the Mommy & Me screenings at the Grove). About halfway through the movie I took out a Lara Bar to snack on. Since I was holding the Lara Bar it was by default Baby M's favorite new toy and a brief struggle ensued. Then he got distracted by my water bottle and I was able to unwrap and take 2 bites of the bar before he changed focus and whacked it out of my hand onto the floor. I'm not sure if you are familiar with Lara Bars, but they are made out of nuts and fruit and have a slightly sticky consistency. Even if I had picked it up within the constraints of the 5 second rule, which I definitely did not, it's probably not the sort of thing you want to eat off the floor of a movie theater. But, I was really hungry. Since I've been breastfeeding I am hungrier than I ever was when I was pregnant. I reasoned that it was the first screening of the day and the floor was probably cleaned the night before, and really how dirty could it be? So I picked up the Lara Bar and finished it. Unfortunately, while I was eating it I realized exactly how dirty the floor could be.

Toys! Toys! Toys!

When I was pregnant I was pretty adamant that my house would not become a giant nursery. Baby M's room would of course, have baby stuff, but I saw no reason for my living room to turn into Romper Room. And up until a few weeks ago we had kept the number of toys, especially those of the giant plastic variety, to a minimum. We really only had 1 offender-- the Fisher Price Kickin Bobbin Gym, a monstrosity I had fully intend to return, but lost the gift receipt and ended up putting it together in a desperate attempt to get out of singing yet another chorus of "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." And, I have to admit, Baby M does seem to enjoy kicking at it.

But a few weeks ago I broke down and bought the giant plastic toy of all giant plastic toys, the Exersaucer. Technically, I bought the Graco Baby Einstein Discover and Play Activity Center, but it's the same idea; a seat for the baby surrounded by different toys. I took Baby M to Babies R Us and had him try out all of the exersaucers, jumperoos, etc and this is the one he liked best. He is especially fond of the push buttons that say the name of animals in English and Spanish. He pushes them with his head instead of his hands, but I'm sure he is just trying to absorb more vocabulary via osmosis. So now I have this giant plaything sitting next to my dining room table, but it is worth it. For the first time in 4 months I can eat dinner without a baby in my lap.

We have also accumulated a variety of rattles, boards books and stuffed animals but Baby M's favorite thing to play with is a gallon sized ziploc bag full of bagel chips. Of course he only gets to hold this bag under careful supervision but it is still the highlight of his day. Now I finally understand why toy companies always label those plastic bags that hold toy parts with the message "Not a Toy. Keep out of reach of children.", it's for parent's like me!

Baby M- Future Club Kid

As I recently posted, Baby M has finally outgrown his colic. Unfortunately he has now started teething. This poor kid can't catch a break. Today seemed to be particularly painful. He was very fussy, didn't want to nurse and tried to chew just about anything he could get his mouth on (except for teething rings, he had no interest in those, but books, blankets, my fingers, the computer keyboard, and any other large unwieldy piece of plastic he gummed with reckless abandon).

By evening I was getting desperate for ways to comfort him and decided that we needed to have a dance party. Getting down to some good tunes always makes me feel better and I reasoned that it might work for my offspring as well. So I dialed up Dee-Lite's World Clique on the iPod (which tells you just how long it's been since I danced anywhere other than my living room) and started bouncing around with Baby M. He totally dug it! He liked it when I jiggled him around on my hip. I put him down on the couch and he wiggled his little legs and arms to the beat. He chortled when I performed a fabulous routine that combined the best of Janet Jackson and Billy Blanks. I think Baby M is going to grow up to be a club kid, he's always seemed to prefer Britney and Usher to Mozart and Vivaldi. Once he's a bit older he'll probably be a regular at Baby Loves Disco and heading out to the desert for some crazy baby rave party.

The Golden Age

At nearly 4 months Baby M has finally reached the so-called “Golden Age.” According to What to Expect the First Year this is the age when “good humor reigns during the day ... and independent mobility has yet to be achieved.” And I have to say, Baby M is in decidedly better spirits these days. It's such a relief after months of crying. Although I never told anyone, I was really worried that I had made a huge mistake in having a baby and just wasn't cut out to be a mom. Baby M cried so much that I knew I must be doing something wrong. There were days when I would have gladly gone back to dealing with 2AM server outages. Perhaps that's why most maternity leaves are only 2-3 months-- it's much easier to leave a baby who cries for 8 hours a day than one that smiles and giggles at everything you do.

So with Baby M's newly sunny disposition I decided we would check out Mommy Movies at the Grove. Every Monday at 11AM the Pacific Theater at the Grove has a showing that welcomes babies. It's great; you can nurse, nobody cares if your baby fusses, there is even a changing station set up inside the theater. This week's movie was 27 Dresses which is a perfectly average romantic comedy that I thoroughly enjoyed. Baby M also seemed to like it. He looked around at all the babies, had a snack, a nap and woke up just in time to see the guy get the girl and live happily ever after.

Namaste Baby

This week Baby M and I started Mommy & Me Yoga classes at a small studio in Westchester. There were a few poses we did while holding our babies, but the majority of the class assumed that your baby would lie quietly on a blanket in front of your mat as you did poses over him. This is really not Baby M's style-- he likes to be carried all the time and isn't one for staying quiet when he's not getting his way. I spent a lot of the class bouncing him and watching the other student (it was a VERY small class) make her way through Downward Dog, Triangle, etc. For awhile the receptionist and then the instructor held Baby M so that I could get a little exercise too. It didn't seem like much of a workout, but I guess it was enough because the next day my muscles were quite sore. There are 4 more classes left, hopefully Baby M will find his inner peace over the next month.

Reading the Experts

As I mentioned before I have a boatload of parenting books, but I found that the more I read the worse I felt about my parenting. Brazelton states that by now I should have established good communication with Baby M and be able to easily identify and meet his needs. Nope-- I still have no idea why he is crying 70% of the time. The Baby Whisperer says I should get Baby M on a 4 hour feeding schedule. You've got to be kidding me-- this kid starts frantically smacking his head against my chest after 2 and a half hours. Weissbluth recommends "extinction" (essentially "Cry It Out") to get your baby to sleep through the night. After a grueling 10 weeks of colic I am not inclined to see how long Baby M will cry before finally conking out from exhaustion. I know he has the stamina to go for hours.

So, as if I didn't have enough conflicting advice, last week I decided I that I also needed to read the Dr. Sears book and checked it out from the library. I knew the basics of Attachment Parenting and while still pregnant had pretty much decided that it wasn't for me, but since I was carrying or wearing Baby M for large parts of the day, nursing frequently and had started letting him sleep in our bed for part of the night I thought there might be something to AP after all. At a minimum I figured I would start feeling better about what I was doing and stop worrying that Baby M would be clingy, sleep deprived and a failure in American society for the rest of his life (although possibly successful in Japanese society according to Brazelton).

When I got to the chapter on fussy babies I nearly fell off the couch. Sear's profile of the fussy baby described Baby M perfectly. "Demanding"- yep; "I just can't put him down" - check; "Wants to nurse all the time" - definitely. Finally it seemed someone was writing about my baby and not some ideal bay laying in an antique crib on the other side of town. Dr. Sears validated all the things that I have been doing just to get through the day and it was great to finally read a parenting book that didn't make me feel like I was setting my child up for a lifetime of issues. And perhaps more importantly, the book helped me re-frame how I see Baby M. He's not "grumpy" or "fussy" he is "High Needs." And he isn't torturing us, he's just demanding a higher standard of care, which means, hopefully, that we will ultimately be better parents.

Nowadays my advice to new parents is to read a limited number of books and just do what it takes to keep your baby happy and healthy. I know this seems obvious and if I had read this statement before having Baby M I probably would have said "No Duh", but then I had a baby and he was so small and delicate and I didn't want to mess him up and I figured these experts knew more than I did. I still don't feel that I'm an expert on Baby M, but I do realize that I probably know a bit more about him than a stack of books.

Deceptively Disgusting

One of the top selling and most talked about books in Mom circles these days is Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. This is the cookbook that shows you how to sneak pureed veggies into kid-friendly foods. Aside from the kid-themed subject, the book also has a pseudo-celebrity author and its very own controversy-- everything you need to get a certain breed of message board mom all riled up.

Since Baby M is still months away from eating solids I haven't really paid much attention to the book, but today at a MOMS Club event the host brought out some banana bread and proudly exclaimed that it had cauliflower hidden in it. The bread looked fine, smelled good and at first bite seemed pretty tasty but a few moments later there was the most terrible aftertaste. I discreetly threw out the rest of my slice, and honestly I didn't notice too many of the kids digging the bread either. Maybe next time she wants to sneak some veggies into her baked goods should just make zucchini bread.

The Existential Question of Baby M

I am starting to wonder if Baby M really exists since there seems to be no official records of his birth. Maybe he is just one big, fussy, hungry, sleep-robbing and every so often absolutely adorable delusion. I have been trying for weeks to get Baby M's social security number. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about the number, except for several relatives who have generously offered to help us get Baby M's college fund started and another who would like to purchase him a savings bond. For both of these actions a SSN is needed.

According to my hospital documents we should have received Baby M's SSN in the mail 6-10 weeks after his birth. We never did. I called the Social Security office and after 30 minutes on hold and repeatedly shouting “Agent” to the automated system, I finally got through to a real live person who told me she couldn't tell me the status of Baby M's SSN unless I knew the SSN. Apparently the only way for me to find out if Baby M was issued a SSN is to go down, in person, to the local Social Security office with a copy of his birth certificate. And no, I was told, you can't make an appointment, so bring a book and some diapers.

The first step is to get a copy of Baby M's birth certificate which I couldn't obtain until 90 days after his birth. So today I went to the LAX courthouse to pick up a copy of the certificate from the Registrar's office. I had downloaded all of the forms and information several weeks ago and unfortunately everything – the form, the fee information and courthouse address were all incorrect. To save anyone else from this hassle, the correct information can be found at

http://www.lavote.net/RECORDER/BDM_Records.cfm

Even with the incorrect information the process would have been fairly painless except for the fact that the clerk couldn't find any record of Baby M being born. Of course the physical evidence, namely Baby M, was right there in front of him, but I understand that he can onnly print records that are in the system and Baby M is currently living off the grid. He suggested I call the Department of Health. So our existential quest continues.