It’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog on how Reed’s been doing. Here are the basics:

Height: Somewhere in the neighborhood of 31 inches.

Weight: 23 pounds.

Words he says: No, yeah, that, car (for anything with wheels, probably his favorite word), dog, uh oh, cup, take that, all done, cup, apple (for apples, peaches, plums, etc.), hi (which he says to people), hello (which he says when he picks up a phone or anything that he can pretend is a phone), ball, mama, and dada. There are a lot of other words he’s said just once, but these are the things he says fairly regularly.

The boy loves to eat!

Foods he loves: meatballs, peaches, plums, graham crackers with cream cheese, yogurt, pizza (especially the crust), pastina and cottage cheese, bananas, ginger cookies, cheerios, apple sauce, ham and cheese croissant, and sweet potatoes. He’s pretty adventurous — he’s eaten goat cheese, a bacon cheddar scone, sesame noodles, and Asian tofu broccoli stirfry.

Favorite toys: His loveys (owl, sheep and elephant), trucks and cars, the dog that talks and sings songs, hand bells, two monkey stuffed animals, phones, popcorn popper, wagon, and John Deere ride-on toy.

Favorite books: That’s Not My Monster, That’s Not My Dinosaur, I Like Snow, I Like Sticks, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Happy Baby 1, 2, 3, Happy Baby Faces, and My First Body Book.

We’ve started to watch a very limited amount of TV — usually just once or twice a week for an hour at most. The only shows he seems to be at all interested in are “Dogs 101″ and “30 Rock.” Don’t ask me why he likes “30 Rock” so much, but it always keeps him in rapt attention.

As far as what Reed likes to do, that would be pretty much everything. He loves the water, whether it’s taking a shower, floating in a pool, or running full-speed into a lake (which he did yesterday). He’s crazy about going on his ride on toys and using his pull-push toys outside, though he’s still not a fan of the sun, so we try to keep him in the shade. He loves animals, dogs especially, but he seems to like every kind he’s met so far. He met three rather fearless ducks at Lake Groton yesterday, and he had a lot of fun chasing them around. Most of all, he just likes to play with and roughhouse with us. He’s always jumping on us, diving into our laps, feeding us, etc.

A happy family

Reed went to Florida 2 1/2 weeks ago to visit his grandparents and great-grandmother and had a really great time. There’s a fun playground for little ones in my parents’ neighborhood and a big pool. My parents also babyproofed their house and basically turned it into a toddler playland, so he was in hog heaven. I’d wanted to do more with him (zoo, etc.), but he was getting over a nasty bout of pneumonia, so we tried to take it pretty easy. It was a good place for him to recuperate and get spoiled. He’s healthy as an ox once again. I don’t think I mentioned it in a previous post, but Reed had surgery on his ears in late May (he got tubes put in) so at least he won’t have painful ear infections or ear pressure any more. It was just after the surgery that he suddenly started saying a lot of new words, so I’m very happy we decided to go ahead it.

We don’t have too much else planned for the rest of the summer. I hope to find some opportunities to take Reed to see live music, since it’s probably his all-time favorite thing, visit some more of the great lake beaches in our area, and take Reed hiking. Summer in Vermont is such a gift and I hope Reed will enjoy visiting new places and discovering nature. It’s fun to watch him encounter new things and grow!

Our sweet baby

1. Have a flexible vision of parenting. Perfectionism is the enemy of sanity when it comes to caring for a baby. I recently read a study that discussed how women who tend to be perfectionists are more likely to have postpartum depression. It makes perfect sense to me. If you have this vision in your head of what kind of parent you’re going to be and then you don’t live up to that, you are going to beat yourself up about it. You have to let yourself make mistakes and change course as you learn to be the kind of parent that’s best for your child — and hopefully that’s a relaxed parent.

2. Trust your gut. No one will know your child as well as you and your spouse/partner. You will get to know this little person better than anyone else, and while other people might be experts in their areas of baby-raising, you are the expert on your baby. My gut told me that Reed was having a problem with my breastmilk at 5 days old. He was gassy and seemed to be in constant pain. His pediatrician told me he was totally fine. Four months later, we found that he had a milk intolerance when all of his digestive and skin issues went away as soon as we got him on hypoallergenic formula. If I’d only trusted my own instincts from the start, we could have avoided a lot of heartache.

3. Think about yourself (or happy mommy=happy baby). If you are making yourself miserable in some quest to be a perfect parent, you are not doing what’s best for your child. The best thing for a child is to be with two parents who love them and are happy with themselves and each other. Mommy crying all the time is not good for baby. Find the balance between doing what’s best for your child and what makes you happy. Take time for yourself. Mother does not equal martyr.

4. There is no one right way to raise a child (or, you won’t break them if you choose x). You’ll hear a lot of things about how people choose to raise their children and they all think that their way is the best. Every child is different. What works well for Reed may not work well for your child. Parenting Reed is so very different than I’d expected, but that’s because he is so different too. And most decisions we make are not going to “ruin” our child. While some decisions we make can have lasting consequences, the vast majority do not. The teenaged son of a well known mommy-blogger and author of a book on attachment parenting recently died from a drug overdose and drug-related beating. Does this mean that she raised him wrong? Does it mean that attachment parenting creates drug addicts? Absolutely not! While I do believe that we have some control over how our children turn out, having a child has made me much more convinced that children are born with certain personality traits. You can raise two kids in the exact same environment the exact same way and they may turn out very, very different. Reed is an always-on-the-move highly social little boy born to two introverted slugs. All we did was provide a nurturing space where he felt he could be himself. We only have so much control over who our child will become, in spite of the many studies published and Dateline NBC stories that make us think feel like every small decision we make regarding our child is life-or-death. God forbid he watch one TV show before he’s two or play with crappy, noisy plastic Fisher Price toys!

5.  Here are some of the many things I wish I’d bought before Reed was born:

• Lots and lots and lots of multi-use absorbent pads. You will be dealing with an ungodly amount of bodily fluids during the first month, and muti-use pads can keep you from having to change the sheets as often (I remember once changing them three times in one day!). They’re also great to have wherever you’re breastfeeding, laying the baby down, etc.
• Kimono (or side-snap)-type outfits. A baby’s neck seems so delicate during those first couple of weeks and putting a shirt over their head can be scary — at least it was for me. With shirts and onesies that snap on the side, you can just lay out the top, put the baby down on top of it, get their arms in, and fasten all the snaps or ties around them. I greatly preferred onesies (i.e. shirts that snap at the crotch) for newborns since t-shirts ride up too much. I didn’t put t-shirts on Reed until he started to stand up, since I figured it couldn’t be comfortable having his shirt up around his chest all the time.
• A swaddler with velcro like the Kiddopotamus Swaddle Me. I was one of those people who couldn’t fold notes in middle school into the cool origami shapes all my friends could, so I should have anticipated that I couldn’t swaddle worth a damn. Yet it put Reed into such a blissful state. No matter how many times I watched our post-partum doula do it, I just couldn’t replicate it. I remember standing with Adam in the middle of the night with Reed screaming, lying on the bed on top of a blanket, and trying to swaddle him while reading the instructions in Happiest Baby on the Block. Suffice it to say that each event like this ended in tears (mine and Reed’s usually). The Kiddopotamus Swaddle Me saved our lives and our sanity! If you’re concerned that baby origami might not be your thing, buy one of these as cheap insurance.
• Pacifiers. I had read so many anti-pacifier things and had many friend who were anti-pacifier, so I thought that there was no way my child was going to use a pacifier. So, of course, I didn’t buy any. Well, it turned out that my son was born with a frighteningly strong sucking reflex and after spending hours on end in the hospital with my finger twisted around to fit in his mouth, I realized that he was going to need pacifiers (or I was going to need a new index finger!).
• Bottles, just in case. While you might be totally gung-ho about breastfeeding, you have no idea what life will throw at you. You might have problems. Your baby might have problems. Having some bottles on-hand isn’t saying that you’re any less than 100% committed to breastfeeding — it’s saying that you’re prepared for all possible outcomes. Just like having a fire extinguisher doesn’t mean that you’re planning to start a fire.
• Formula, again, just in case. I’d be shocked if most people could go through their entire pregnancies without getting some free formula in the mail, so you probably don’t even have to buy any.
• Small receiving blankets like the very basic cotton flannel ones at Carters. Most of the blankets we had received as gifts were huge for a newborn. Carters receiving blankets were just the right size for wrapping up a newborn baby and were wonderfully soft.

6. Here are things I did have which saved my life

• A breast pump – when the problems nursing Reed had sent me to the breaking point and I was ready to give up nursing altogether, pumping gave me the breathing room (and healing room) I needed.
• Portable nightlights – these were so helpful when nursing Reed in the middle of the night. You don’t want to turn on the light at 3am, so portable nightlights allowed me to get just enough light to figure out where his mouth was.
• A dimmer switch in the nursery – this is a godsend for setting the light to just the right level for the baby to feel comfortable and for you to be able to change him in the middle of the night.
• iPhone – Reed would often fall asleep in my arms while I nursed him, so I’d just sit there with nothing to do and nowhere to go. The iPhone allowed me to surf the web with one hand, catch up on email, etc. I wish I’d had my Kindle at the time too, because leafing through a book with one hand and a baby in your arms is pretty difficult.
• Boppy pillow – this, or something like it is critical when you’re just getting the hang of positioning a baby for nursing.
• Cradle swing – The swing gave us our only opportunities early on to eat together or do pretty anything without holding Reed. He would fall asleep in it and we’d get a few quiet moments to relax. Bouncers are great later on, but swings are useful from Day 1.

7. Don’t buy large quantities of anything before the baby is born. You have no idea whether your child will have a bad reaction to the wipes you use, the skin cream you try on them, or the formula you choose for them (if you go that route). While you might want to stock up in advance because it makes you feel “ready”, it’s not worth doing. I bought a ton of 7th Generation Wipes only to find that Adam had a violent skin reaction to them. We had to get rid of them and switch to a different brand. Until you know what works for your child (and remember that may change over time too), don’t stock up.

8. Ask for help. Whether it’s friends, family, or a postpartum doula, new parents need all the support they can get. It’s totally reasonable to ask a close friend to organize your friends to bring you food after the baby is born. It’s totally reasonable to ask family members to come and help out so you can get some sleep. And, as we learned, paying a postpartum doula (who won’t bring the baggage and unwanted advice family members might bring) to provide whatever support you need in those first days at home is totally worth it. Adam and I both tend to be the sort of stubbornly independent people who don’t like to ask for help, and we really learned the hard way that you can’t be like that when you’re a new parent.

9. It will get better. Those first two months were rough! We barely slept, Reed was crying all the time because of his stomach problems, and nothing about caring for a baby felt intuitive. But now, other than when he’s sick and not sleeping, life with Reed has an easy, predictable rhythm and we’ve grown comfortable in our role as Reed’s parents. Over time, it all becomes more and more natural, the baby starts sleeping and eating at more normal intervals, and your body gets used to less sleep (unless you’re one of those lucky people whose child slept through the night by 6 weeks!). You do start to feel like a human being again. And eventually, you can get 8 hours straight of sleep, it becomes easier to go out of the house with your child, and the idea of being a “mommy” doesn’t seem so foreign anymore. I know I heard this from parents before Reed was born, but once I was in the eye of the storm, I didn’t really believe it.

Having a baby is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s also been the most stressful. And the best learning experience. And made me happier than I could have imagined. Reed is now 14 months old. He’s walking like a champ, saying more words every day (he actually said “thank you” to me when I handed him his shoe today!!!), and is so curious about the world around him. All day he points at things and asks “what’s that?” I feel so lucky to be his mom. It’s so cool to get to teach him about the world and introduce him to all the cool things, people, tastes, smells, etc. around him. We have plenty of tough days (and nights), but I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to get to spend time with him and how I live for that adorable little smile of his.

So, if you’re reading this with your first baby on the way, congratulations! You have SO MUCH to look forward to!

Very happy birthday boy!

Reed celebrated his birthday in Chicago. We spent almost a week there, visiting with his Nonna and Poppop, his aunt Riki and his cousins Maddy and Max. Reed had a lot of fun with all of them, though the trip was marred by a nasty ear infection that made him pretty crabby most of the time. One highlight from the trip was when Reed met a dog (a Labrador retriever) up close and got licked on his face. Reed got an obscene number of new toys for his birthday, so he’s been in hog heaven ever since.

The week after we got home from Chicago, Reed suddenly must have gotten it into his head that he wanted walking to be his primary mode of transportation. Within the course of three days, he went from walking maybe 10 steps before falling down to walking pretty much everywhere. At this point, Reed almost never crawls anymore, and though he still falls down from time to time, he can pick himself up and start walking again. It’s really cool to watch! He’s also said some more words since “dog.” He’s said “yeah”, “no”, “up”, “apple”, “bye bye”, “uh oh”, and some other things that I’m not remembering right now (note to self: write this stuff down when he does it!). He’s also eating a huge variety of foods now. He’s doing really well with feeding himself finger foods and even eats things like smoked salmon and zucchini, which I wouldn’t have touched with a 10-foot pole at that age. His favorites right now seem to be cream cheese sandwiches, grilled cheese, bananas, applesauce, sweet potatoes, and peanut butter on Ritz crackers. It’s fun to be able to have him eat the same dinner as us many nights and to share things with him. Tonight, we ate a peach together!

Towards the end of this month, Reed is finally going to have to get surgery on his ears. He had another ear infection and has had a lot of fluid

Future President

behind his ears pretty much continuously for months on end. It’s made him uncomfortable and irritable at times and has impacted his balance and probably his hearing. It’s difficult to know how much his hearing is impacted, but it’s likely that not dealing with this now could lead to speech delays. It’s an amazingly quick procedure (it’s done in minutes) and is very routine, but I’m still nervous about it. He has to go under general anesthesia, so anything with that is a pretty big deal. I’ll be very glad when it’s over.

Other than his ears, Reed has been doing great. He laughs all the time and loves to play. He even makes up games — his favorite is this funny version of hide-and-seek involving him closing the door to a room and Adam and me hiding somewhere before he opens it again. He’s starting to have some “toddler moments” where he gets obstinate or cries when we don’t let him do something he wants to do, but we’re determined not to give in to that stuff and he usually gives up pretty quickly. He’s really grown up a lot over just the past few weeks and every day he manages to do something new that makes me even more proud of him.

Tomorrow, we’re visiting Shelburne Farm to see the sheep, cows, chickens and more. Should be fun!

He can stand on his own!

It’s very hard for me to fathom that almost a year has gone by since Reed was born. Those first few months went so slowly and all of a sudden, as soon as being a parent became more natural and Reed became more interactive and fun, time really sped up! I look at pictures of him when he was eight months old and it feels like yesterday.

Reed has been taking so many big steps in his life over the past two months. On March 7th, he took his first unassisted steps and since then, he’s gotten so much better at standing up on his own and walking while holding just one of my hands. Just this past Sunday, he said his first word (dog) as a golden retriever walked by and I told Reed what he was. He even said it twice more that day when I was reading him a book and then when we saw the same dog again later! He also started saying “nana,” which means he wants a banana instead of the crappy food we’re giving him. He is obsessed with bananas.

Reed's first creemee!

Last week, when we were having beautiful weather, we took Reed to get his first creemee (for those outside of VT, that’s soft serve ice cream). Not surprisingly, he loved it. We’ve also started transitioning him to whole milk which he guzzles just like I did when I was little. This past weekend, he met and petted sheep, chicks and a calf, and went on a wagon ride at Billings Farm. Even though we know he goes outside at daycare too, we’ve made it a point to take him outside on every nice day we’ve had. He loves touching the grass and bushes, ripping up leaves, and trying to eat pine cones. He especially likes walking the block with his walker (see our last post for a video). He has a real joie de vivre and love of people, so it’s a pleasure to take him out and about. It’s fun to see the world through his eyes.

While Reed has had pneumonia and a cold since our last big update, he’s actually been doing exceptionally well, healthwise. Since we started taking him into the steamy shower with us every night, he hasn’t had a single ear infection. It’s been really helpful in getting all the gunk to drain out of his sinuses. Since he’s been doing so much better and eating so well at daycare, we finally felt comfortable cutting out the nighttime feedings and following the instructions in the Ferber book for getting him to sleep through the night. So far, he’s slept completely through the night three nights in a row, so hopefully he’s past the waking up multiple times thing (knock wood!).

I’m going to be away from Reed for the first time next week as I attend a conference in the D.C. area. I’ll be gone Sunday – Wednesday. Every time I think about it I get a knot in the pit of my stomach. I’m going to miss him so much! Fortunately, I’ll get lots of time with Reed the following week as we leave for a six-day trip to Chicago on the 17th (his birthday!!!). Reed is going to have a great birthday party that Sunday with Adam’s family, my parents, and some family friends. It’s going to be awesome and I’m sure he’ll have a ton of fun with his cousins.

While I can’t believe Reed’s nearly a toddler, in so many ways it already feels like he is one. He’s so independent, gutsy, stubborn, curious, and social. I couldn’t be more proud of him and everything he’s achieved in just 12 short months. I’m just crazy about him.

Reed’s new favorite thing is ripping things, especially paper (though he’ll even settle for ripping up old leaves outside). Here’s a movie from the day that we discovered that ripping up a newspaper would send him into new heights of giggling. He actually ended up laughing so hard he spit up a little!

Reed is also becoming the king of the walker. Yesterday, he actually walked half our block in his walker and did not want to stop. Even when he comes across an impediment — like a house — he tries to go right through it. Talk about determination!

This is just a cute movie of Reed smiling at his daddy. We have a difficult time taking pictures and movies of him these days because he always wants to come up and grab the camera. Such a Sean Penn!

For those of you who have no idea what an RSS feed is and just want to get alerted via email when there are new photos and blog posts about Reed, you can subscribe via email.

The email subscription box on the side of the blog is just to subscribe to the blog content — entering your email into the box in this post and clicking Subscribe will update you both when we post to the blog and when new photos of Reed are posted to Flickr.

I believe this will send each photo as a separate email, so be prepared that if we upload 20 pictures of Reed, you’ll get 20 emails each with a separate picture. If you want to receive just one alert per day (and only if new stuff is posted) you can create a Yahoo! Alert (note, you will be prompted to log into Yahoo! and if you don’t already have an account, you’ll be able to create a free one then). On the alerts page, you’ll need to enter the RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/reedfeed and then under “Choose how often you want Alerts delivered” click on the radio button next to “Once a day, if there are changes.” Then make sure that it’s set to deliver to your email address. That way, if we email 20 photos in one day and 2 the next day, you’ll only get one email each day. And if we don’t upload anything, you won’t be bothered at all.

What a flirt!

I take very little credit for his personality. I used to be a big believer in nurture over nature, but Reed’s personality is definitely something he was born with. Obviously, we could have screwed him up by not giving him a safe and loving environment, but he was definitely meant to be a sweet, happy, easy-going, social and flirty little guy. He seems to have gotten the best pieces of Adam’s and my personalities. Lucky him. Lucky us!

Poor little guy is still dealing with recurrent ear infections. I feel like he’s constantly on antibiotics — the last course was extended to 15 days since his ears were still looking pink after 10. This week, we’ve started putting him in the shower with one of us every night in the hopes that the steam will help his ears drain better. I don’t know if it’s working, but what we have discovered is that he LOVES the shower. In spite of his illnesses, he’s usually in a really good mood. He has his moments of whining, crying and sulking, but much less than I’d expect from someone who has gotten three teeth and two ear infections over the past three weeks. I was thinking today about how much his moods impact my own. When he’s happy and having a day like he was on Saturday, I’m happy. When he’s feeling crappy — like he was this morning when his gums were hurting — I feel terrible (helpless, frustrated, worried).

Here’s a short movie of my happy guy that Adam took while we were getting him ready for bed. Reed was in one of those happy/lovey moods where he dives on us and tries to french kiss us, but I got the upper hand and started kissing his belly. Here is his reaction:

Adam and I are the luckiest people in the world — or at least I feel that way when I hear Reed laugh.

It is hard to believe that Meredith and I have been together that long.

But looking back, we’ve been through a great deal together in that time, both personally and professionally –
We got married; Meredith switched careers and wrote a book; my company moved into fields that were totally unanticipated (and lots more fun); we had a wonderful baby; and we moved across the country, to beautiful (frigid) Vermont. I feel like I’ve led a charmed life this past 7 years.

This morning when driving alone after dropping Reed off at day care, I did something exceptionally pin-headed. The mountain road that I usually take to get home looked clear, and I was driving above the speed limit, and not paying much attention to what I was doing.

As I crested the hill and started to descend, I realized that the road was actually not clear, and that there was instead blowing snow and black ice beneath.

Picking up speed with no way to slow down I was at the completely at the mercy of physics to get me through in one piece.

For those few brief seconds, all I could think about was Meredith. At first I could hear her voice in my head (“Idiot! I can’t believe you’re going to die this way!) And then I thought how sad i’d be to leave her behind. And how much i’d miss her.

Fortunately, as I made it to the bottom of the hill and up the other side, I was able to get control of the car with only minor tail-wagging. Crisis averted, and lesson learned.

But the incident this morning just reinforced in my own mind that Meredith is truly the most important person in my life, and I love her to bits. I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without her there.

Happy Anniversary, hon.

Meredith’s brother Scott and his fiance Miriam came up to visit. It was great seeing Scott again and nice to finally meet Miriam.

They make a cute couple, and boy, Reed went nuts over them. He immediately jumped into their arms and started playing with them like they were long, lost friends. It was fun to watch.

OMG.. More people to Jump on!

We all had a blast and I hope that we can schedule some time in NYC to see them this summer.

Their visit was a nice change of pace for Reed, who the past two weeks has been socked with RSV and a double-ear infection (his 4th so far since December.) While all of that was happening, he also cut his first two teeth.

They are sharper than they look

He’s getting back to his usual happy self now, so it seems like the RSV is behind him and the otitis media is improving.

If the infections keep recurring, he’s probably on his way to getting tubes. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that he grows out of it.