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.