Liquid Life

Calling All Moms

2009-11-07T03:34:00Z

So…I need major advice. Major. My baby is now ten months old and I know I am supposed to be transitioning him to a sippy cup, table foods, and college life, but I am freaking out. So, in an effort to calm down, I am calling on all you seasoned mommies out there.

First of all, Hudson does not seem to like any lumps in his food. If he comes across a chunk of potato that did not get mashed up, he spits it right out. Every time. Secondly, he does not like to touch food with his hands. Case in point—he LOVES cheese, but he will not under any circumstances pick it up with his fingers. Just won’t do it. He waits for me to put it in his mouth. Don’t even get me started on table foods. I mean, I give him chunks of bananas and pears and whatnot, but that’s not a meal, per se.

So, to summarize, my baby does not like stuff on his tray, he does not like to pick up food with his hands and feed himself, he does not like chunks in his food, and he doesn’t seem interested in putting any kind of an effort into this eating thing. Is he just not ready? Is it too early to worry about this? HELP?!?!?

My second major concern or question is about sippy cups. There are so many on the market, I am not sure where to start. I bought one by Nuby and was majorly disappointed because the cup actually leaks and makes huge messes. Which cup did your baby use and love? Which cup worked best for your baby?

I felt like transitioning to cereal and solid foods was a lot less stressful than the transition to table foods/sippy cup. Any advice is appreciated.

Yours truly,

Stressed out mamma.

Month Ten

2009-10-29T23:28:00Z

Happy tenth month birthday! What a big boy we have on our hands these days. This month brought a couple of welcome changes. Hudson’s pediatrician informed us at his ninth month appointment that Hudson no longer needed any night feedings. Cut those out, he said, it’s time.

I was a little skeptical. I mean, Hudson’s been waking up once every night for a while now, but I thought we should give it a try. Well, what do you think the little turkey did the very first night following that appointment? He didn’t wake up once and slept for 12 hours straight with absolutely no feeding. I think someone was paying attention to his doctor (to whom I shall refer as the baby whisperer from here on out).

Nap times have been a lot more peaceful around here as well. Hudson just goes to sleep without a big battle, which I really appreciate. He seems to like to play in his crib before he actually falls asleep, especially in the afternoons and I don’t mind at all.

We’ve hit a couple of rough nights as of late, but other than that, this month was pretty much smooth sailing in terms of night-time sleep. Things are also much better on the food front. Hudson is now eating a lot better and has even been adventurous enough to try some raw apples, mashed potatoes, white bread (oh, my!), and chicken. We are still working on bananas, but it’s a slow process.

Hudson has continued to manifest his love for dogs through squeals and yells and laughs. We’ve made quite a few furry friends on our walks around the neighborhood. The cool thing is that dogs seem to love him just as much as he adores them.

The little guy is also so much more independent. He doesn’t want to be held or otherwise contained in any way, shape or form. He wants to take off and explore, especially under those dining room tables. He basically creates obstacle courses for himself and then overcomes them.

He loves chasing little plastic balls around the house. Those balls also end up in all kinds of forbidden territory and Hudson must rescue them. I mean, if the ball rolls behind the TV, he absolutely MUST rescue it, right? He definitely knows how to get where he wants to go.

We have also been playing plenty of ‘fetch that toy.’ He had mastered the throw, so anything you give him ends up right back on the floor. From what we can tell, he seems to be a leftie, which is perfectly fine with us and will make his Russian grandpa and US grandma very proud (they are both lefties).

The biggest thing we’ve been working on this month is the word ‘NO.’ Hudson knows what the word means and knows that he is not supposed to touch or go wherever or do whatever, but he likes to question, beg, plead, and sneak to get his way anyway. He especially loves electrical wiring of any kind and it’s a battle to get him to stay away from it.

Strangely enough, Hudson loves to play with anything ‘cloth.’ He gets into our T-shirts, socks, kitchen towels, etc. and just drags them around while he crawls anywhere and everywhere. It’s quite funny, it really is. He is generally on a mission these days and keeps us busy all day, every day.

At the rate time is flying, mama better start planning that birthday party because it’ll be here before we know it. Until then, I am going to enjoy all the laughs and giggles my little man is willing to throw my way.

The Trip to Nowhere

2009-10-13T21:34:00Z

Four days ago we were supposed to fly to a beautiful beach to spend the weekend there. Husband was scheduled to speak at this conference and Hudson and I couldn’t let him go by himself. Not when it involved a beach, no sir. So I packed our bags with hundreds of ounces of formula, a million jars of baby food and a gazillion diapers (not to mention sun block, sun hats, toys, blankets, burpies; I think I pretty much packed the whole house) and we headed out for what was supposed to be a fun time at the beach.

I had to wake up the baby because our flight was leaving that early. It’s never a good idea to wake up a sleeping baby, especially in the morning. I always have such a hard time doing that because a) that means I have to be awake and coherent, b) the baby is obviously cranky since he didn’t get his sleep, and c) all of the above times a thousand.

So, while we got to the airport on time, our plane did not. Never a good sign, don’t you think? We had to wait about 20-30 minutes for our plane to arrive to DFW so we could in turn fly to our destination. No big deal, right? Well, we finally board the plane, stroller, luggage, baby and all; I buckle my seat belt like a law-abiding citizen that I am, and the pilot makes an announcement.

Right away we can tell something is wrong because he starts out by apologizing. He tells us one of the tires on the airplane is busted and has to be replaced. OK. He also tells us that it is not possible to replace a tire on an aircraft unless it is empty of all passengers and their luggage. Ugh. So off we go, stroller, luggage, baby and all.

At this point we are delayed about one-and-a-half hours. It will take another 45 minutes (read and hour) to fix the plane. At that point we contemplate negotiating a refund and just walking away, but we decide to stick around. Our beautiful baby has now been awake for about 4.5 hours and desperately needs a nap.

Long story short, the plane is fixed, but now the weather between DFW and our beach destination is not conducive to flying. What? So, after all this wait and boarding/deplaning the flight is canceled. Worse yet, we cannot get on another flight until evening of the following day (the conference will be over by then).

I am not sure if I was more tired than disappointed or the other way around. Thankfully, we were able to get a full refund and, because we didn’t check our luggage, we were able to get the heck out of there as quickly as we could. What a bummer of a weekend. Although, I must say that Hudson seemed like he had a lot of fun hanging out at the airport and playing on the airplane. Now we tell him that if he is good, we’ll go play at the airport.

Big Plans

2009-10-12T01:28:29Z

I might be putting some pressure on this project by talking about it before it is completed, but I felt like letting you know what’s going on. This guy is so good to me, he agreed to give my site a new look and feel. I’ve been here for four years and, while I LOVE the current layout, I need more room to play.

I am not sure when this project will be completed (I guess I better cook up some peanut butter cookies for that special someone), but that’s something you and I can look forward to. I am also seriously considering a more disciplined and scheduled approach to this blogging thing. I just might surprise you.

Month Nine

2009-09-30T16:11:00Z

We are finally at the point where Hudson has been on the outside as long as he’d been in my belly. I am, once again, in denial about how quickly the time flies. While this month has been quite busy, I finally got a little break while we visited family and had grandma here for two weeks. So sad my break is over.

This month we traveled some more—back to Dallas from Pullman, WA. Hudson had a complete meltdown on the first of two flights. It wasn’t pretty, but we made it. Thank God for grandmothers and people on the plane who actually know how hard it is to appease a tiny human who cannot speak.

We also discovered that Hudson loves the swing. Oh. My. Goodness. Don’t even get me started on his love affair with that little blue bucket seat. It usually takes two people to pry him out of that thing.

In the past two-three days we’ve gone to the park to swing several times a day. It’s the same story every time—get there, get in the swing, relax and almost fall asleep, scream bloody murder when taken out of swing. Repeat. It’s kind of funny and kind of not at the same time. Here is my favorite Hudson+swing moment.

Hudson is also quite fond of the pool even when the water is freezing. He gasps for air, but still doesn’t want to get out. He’s funny like that. And please don’t think that we torture our baby and let him swim for hours in sub-zero temperatures. We don’t. It’s really not as bad as it sounds (we are in Texas, after all).

This month we got a break from teething. Hallelujah a thousands times over. We also were so blessed as to have a few nights of 12-hours of UNINTERRUPTED sleep. In case you didn’t catch it, the emphasis here is on UNINTERRUPTED. I had to get up and check on him to make sure he was ok.

I’d say the biggest issue this month was/will continue to be food. Yes, we are currently fighting the food thing. Hudson LOVES yogurt and that’s an understatement. If he is going to do so much work as to sit in high chair, open mouth, and chew (heaven forbid!), there better be yogurt in there and lots of it.

Example—I give him a bite of apples. He tastes them, makes a face and turns away. We try this for a couple of minutes until I give in and smother those apples in yogurt. Once he realizes there is yogurt in there, he begs for food and I can’t shovel it in his mouth quick enough.

The thought of just how much yogurt is ok for a 9-month old to consume crosses my mind a hundred times every day. I am an enabler. Is there a support group for mothers who let their babies eat way too much yogurt for the sake of keeping meal-times semi-peaceful?

It also helps if his sheep toy is singing all about being a country boy and I am not even kidding. This sheep has been a life line at every meal (I usually make it play over and over until Hudson is done eating; this is the only tune stuck in brain these days).

This month Hudson has also perfected his crawling, pulling up, standing, and cruising abilities. We think he will be walking soon. Currently he loves to get away from us on all fours and giggles his face off when I call out his name and chase him around the house. He’s got an attitude.

There are so many more little things like chewing the heck out of his Desitin and Aveeno Baby cream tubes; getting cheerios stuck on his hiney; picking mama’s nose in public; re-formatting my Mac with every bang of his little palm; laughing uncontrollably at dogs; the love of tooth-brushing and lots more that make him into our most and bestest baby ever.

This month’s stats:

19.6 lb (25-50%)
30 inches (97%)

The doctor is sure he will be six feet tall.