Let Him Eat Birthday Cake

Jack is what one might deem “all boy” in every way except for one.  He does not like to have dirty fingers.  I personally don’t know a single child who reacted to his birthday cake the way Jack did – with apprehension; nay, disgust.   It was not long ago that Jack would eat literally anything I pureed, but now that he feeds himself he has become much pickier.  He scans his tray for only those foods with the most choice colors and textures (somehow meatloaf and broccoli fall into the favored category) and devours them delicately.  His selection is precise and his movements towards his mouth are quite dainty.  I hardly have to wipe his hands when his meal is complete.

When we placed his birthday cake in front of him, Jack very carefully tapped the icing with a single index finger, judged the cake to be disagreeable and proceeded simply to stare at it.  We poked it with spoons to encourage consumption, but he played the cake like a drum in lieu of demolishing it with his hands.  Even with the assistance of his friends Mikel and Annabelle, Jack did not even feign interest.

It was only when Daddy placed mandarin oranges on the center of the cake did Jack decide it was worth his effort.  He raised his fingers and ever-so-carefully pried the fruit from the cavern of the cake and into his mouth.  This strategy worked only until the point at which his hands accidentally fell flat onto the cake and his palms became coated in white and blue frosting.  Then the tears erupted and flowed until we pulled Jack out of his high chair and into my arms.  He clung to my black sweater and the back of my neck with his gooey, white, cake-coated fingers until I placed him contentedly in the bathtub to de-soil.

Birthday cupcakes

Jack’s special cake made by Mikel and Annabelle

Cake drum

No interest

Jack’s BFFs show him what he’s supposed to do to the cake

Picking out the oranges

Hands slip onto the frosting

I hate dirty fingers

The whole event was endearing.  I can certainly think of worse things for a child to refuse to consume.

The Terrible…Ones?

Jack, in general, is the most affectionate, hilarious little man.  He gives running hugs and giggles all day long.  But he is also very, VERY willful.  He is not afraid to express himself, loudly, when he is displeased.  At his 1-year doctor’s appointment that I scheduled at the same time as his routine morning nap (in hindsight, not my best move), shortly after being weighed and measured (23 lbs, 9 oz; 32 inches – still tall and skinny), Jack took a little poop in his diaper that I figured I should change before the doctor entered the room.  We all know how much Jack loves being held, fully supine, against his will.  I’ve mastered the art of distraction, so most of Jack’s diaper changes now go without a hitch, but when he’s overdue for slumber it’s another story.  Jack went into a full on, hold-his-breath-then-release-a-wail-at-hurricane-speed-while-flexing-every-muscle-in-his-body-into-a-solid-board tantrum that shook the walls all the way to the waiting room…just as the pediatrician opened the door for his check up.  As I struggled to hold his kicking feet together so they wouldn’t land directly in the diaper I had strategically unwrapped with one hand as Jack writhed in anger, I gave the doctor a half-smile and said, “As you can see, he’s not much for diaper changes; he hates not having full control of his body.”

She was surprised and told me that he was very young to be having tantrums, which I suggested were nothing new in our household. I recalled his first outright fit of annoyance at 7 months when I told Jack he was not allowed to stick his fingers in the electrical socket and physically blocked him from doing so by putting my hands across the wall unit.  The tears began to flow and he lay with his head against the ground and his arms fully outstretched for a good ten seconds until he spotted a toy that made him forget what he was angry about.  And the latest of his vocal outbursts is the high-pitched, top-of-the-lungs scream when he gets frustrated.  This happens a few times a day if I pry a spoon from his kung fu grip to prevent him from wandering the kitchen with it in his mouth, or if he pushes his toy train into a corner and can’t lift the toy to correct its position.  I try my hardest to ignore it because I don’t want him to assume screaming is the way to get my attention; but given his limited “ball”, “duck”, “yum”, “dog” vocabulary, it’s not like he can say “Hey Mommy, can you help me out with this toy here, it seems to be wedged behind the laundry room door?”

The pediatrician just smiled and said, “We’ll just call Jack ‘Opinionated’”, which is the artistic truth.  You’d never know it today, but apparently I was the same way.  A handful.

Fuzzhead

Speaking of his first hair cut, I can’t call him Fuzzhead anymore because Kent clipped Little Man’s out of control curl-spikes (or butchered, depending on the angle and the amount of sunlight in the room).

Now I just call him Buzz.

Little Man

I always refer to Jack as Little Man; but with bittersweet affection, it’s now true.  In fact, the name of this blog has minimal truth to it anymore, as my sweet baby has entered toddlerhood at full speed (running…literally).  With his first birthday a mere day away, I’m feeling sentimental.  He’s had his first hair cut.  He drinks cow’s milk.  He eats sandwiches.  He faces forward in the car.  He climbs into his Little Man rocking chair and moves the chair back and forth on his own.  He dines and eats at the big table with adults.

Champion’s lunch – PBJ

Maybe next time we’ll try a barber

Sir Jack in his forward facing seat of power

Fancy Brunch

He plays the drums.

His size 4 sneakers no longer fit his giant feet.  I no longer have to puree fresh fruits.  Instead, I simply cut blueberries in half, place them on his tray, and he pops them onto his tongue.  The list grows longer every day.

I suppose, as the sun sets on the last day before he turns 1, I have nothing more profound to say than the usual cliché, “it’s gone by so fast.”

Walking is SO Last Month

A colleague suggested recently that the most fascinating time in his own daughter’s young life was between the ages of 10 and 16 months, when she was changing daily.  How right he was!  If I had the time I’d be writing a blog post every hour to capture Jack’s astonishing development.

We hosted Christmas at our house this year and during the short few days surrounding the holiday, Jack’s multitude of “new” captured the hearts of all his relatives.  He dances, he giggles, he runs, he kisses on command (although the only people who can stomach his open-mouthed slobbers are his parents), he feeds himself, he turns the pages of his book and stares at the images in front of him with full understanding.  We ask him questions like “where is the elephant” or “which one is blue” and nine times out of ten, he points to the correct image (provided he doesn’t think we’re playing the game for show – in which case he stares at me as if to say “get real, mom – this is boring”).

Reading with Grandpa

Reading with Grandpa

Reading with Great-Grandma

Reading with Nana

He climbs onto anything that is waist high (his rocking chair and the bathtub being the most nerve-wracking of his attempted conquests); regardless of his backwards tumble down half a flight of stairs during which he skinned his nose a few days before Christmas, the kid is fearless (well, of everything except our giant vacuum).

But the two things that I love the most are the hugs in which Jack raises his arms and runs directly into our embrace, giggling as he does so…

…and the mimicking.  He repeats our vocal intonations, facial expressions and activities.  When I blink, he blinks.  When I wave, he waves.  When I hold up my hand, he slaps me a high five.  When I make chewing motions with my lips to remind Jack that he needs to manipulate the oversized bite of cheese he has placed into his mouth, he opens and shuts his mouth in much the same way (but with a giant, facetious smile).

Every day he surprises us with something – always smiling.  Little Man is going to go far.

Snow

Although all my Mommy and Jack plans for the weekend flew through the window with the 2-ish feet of snow that gracefully dumped on us, we did have a few fleeting moments of fun alone together in an untouched wonderland of white (before I cursed the heavy flakes and the 3+ hours of shoveling I did while Jack napped and Kent played Mr. Fix-It at our house in Vegas).

Thermal under-layer. Totally content.

Second layers – Not sure sure

Third layer – very angry!

Okay – this has possibilities

Testing it out

Can we go inside yet?

Snow cheeks

Cutest snow baby ever

Mommy and Jack Weekend

While I admit that I requested that Kent spend this weekend in Vegas as opposed to last weekend (when I required his babysitting services to attend a best friend’s birthday extravaganza), it still seems oddly coincidental that our first major forecasted  snow-dumping as East Coast homeowners is happening precisely on a weekend he is away.  Nonetheless, whether the flakes unload as anticipated or not, Jack and Mommy are prepared for a wonderful and much-needed weekend alone together.

Jack's First Snow

Having left my previous firm with a small group of colleagues to join a former partner in a spin-off/start-up endeavor at the commencement of the fourth quarter; I’m finding that my newfound hectic work life more than compensates for the slow pace of “on the bench” I enjoyed when I first returned from my maternity leave.  I am happier, but busier than I have ever been.  Because I won’t sacrifice my Jack time in the early evenings before he goes to bed at 8, I often find myself clicking away at financial reports long after midnight and arising before the sun to get myself ready and Jack’s milk pumped before he wakes up.  Come Friday nights I can barely keep my eyes open and after Jack retires I fall onto my own bed like a beat-up, but victorious, super hero.

With a brand new pair of little-man snow boots, an electric power shovel and a well-stocked fridge, I can barely wait to wake up in the morning and share a little taste of the old homeland with my son.  Just us.

Supply and Demand

I found an interesting statistic that, although a good 6 years old, probably still holds true today:  At a baby’s 6th month, only 14% of mothers are still exclusively breastfeeding and only 36% of mothers are doing any breastfeeding at all.  By a baby’s 12th month, 0% of mothers are exclusively breastfeeding and only 17% of mothers are doing any breastfeeding at all.

As Jack approaches 11 months, I’ve been revisiting my feelings on the topic quite frequently.  Like a small minority of mothers, given an ample supply and the patience to pump every day, 3-4 times a day, I was able to exclusively breastfeed Jack until he was 9 months old.  Up until that point, the only formula he consumed was once or twice as an infant while my milk let down (Jack was forced out after his due date, so my milk supply didn’t solidify until his 5th day) and twice when Kent and I went on multiple-day trips without Jack and I only had 2-days worth of reserves.  Otherwise, besides a multitude of natural purees and water, breast milk was all he got.

When I lost the last pregnancy-related pound a few weeks before Jack’s 8-month birthday (in the midst of a 45 day running streak), I noticed a drop in my supply, but I was still able to pump about 24 ounces to meet Jack’s demand (given the rate at which Jack devoured food and water, I was never concerned about hydration or weight gain).  But after Jack’s 9th month, my body subtly entered breast milk shutdown.  For the first time since Jack was born, my body began the weaning signals.  Production slowed from 36 oz. a day when Jack was 3-6 months old, to 24 oz. a day when he was 7.5 months old, to 18-20 oz. a day when he was 9 months old.  Despite that my supply no longer meets Jack’s needs and I finally had to introduce a daily formula supplement to his diet, I am still somewhat stubbornly attached to my Ameda.

Two days before Jack reaches his 11th month, although bittersweet, I am coming to grips with the fact that it may be time to end my pumping cycle.  Jack and I have had a wonderful run.  My original, pre-birth, breastfeeding goal was to go “as long as I could stand it” or perhaps 6 months – whichever came first.  11 months later, with 9 months of exclusive breastfeeding and 2 additional months of majority breastfeeding, I feel proud of my ability to provide.  And despite the melancholy with which I will spend the remainder of the next month letting go, it’s time to listen to my body.

Jack is thriving.  He’s brilliant; he’s curious; he’s active; he’s lean, muscular and incredibly strong; he absorbs everything; he’s interactive; he’s jovial; he’s headstrong; he’s expressive; he’s social; he’s loving; he’s vocal; he’s playful; he’s healthy; he sleeps like an angel and has since he was 6 weeks old.  My glorious milk has done its job.  My sweet baby Jack, who spends more of his days in the “big boy” infant room with the older walkers and talkers, is ready for a breast-free independence; and his Mommy is finally okay with that.

And now, we begin my weaning…

Walking Machine

Yesterday when I picked Jack up at school, I found him in the Infant C room (intended for 12-16 month old children).  The caregiver on staff was beaming and chattered excitedly about how much Jack was walking and how he is able to pull himself on and off the plastic bicycles.  She was surprised that he’s only 10 months and told me that he’s ready for the room with bigger kids.

I’m not sure how my lazy little infant went from being a late roller and crawler (4.5 and 7.5 months, respectively), to ascending stairs at lightning speed and walking quite well before the dawn of his 10 month birthday…

 

Mama’s Boy

If there was ever a question of who my son most resembled, the review of an album full of baby Jessica photos brought across the country by Jack’s Nana has put the question to bed.  Although there are notable differences (his lips, ears and hair color), I still flipped through the photo collection imagining I was staring right into the twinkling, smiling eyes of my own son.

Grandpa Murray in the studly 70s

Baby Jessica

Baby Jessica and her beautiful mom

Baby Jessica

From his teeth to his tooshie and toes, he is definitely his mother’s baby.