Raspberries For Christmas!

YACK!

Hey, ma....I got something' for ya, and it ain't a raspberry.

It's been four barf-drenched days since the beginning of Ava's first stomach bug, and let me tell you, when she gets sick, she commits, because this one was a four-day long hummmmdinger.

Without dragging you through he gut-wrenching details, I'm very much embarrassed that it took me three days to realize that clear liquids (such as Pedialyte) would be a bit more productive than calorie-fortified formula.  I think I was so panicked about her losing precious calories (which she was going to lose out one end or the other anyway), I went into sort of a food-shoveling frenzy, frantically attempting to feed her a smidgen of something that might miraculously stick to her cramping stomach. 

 In my overbearing insanity, every memory of wanting absolutely nothing of substance when I had childhood stomach bugs was somehow erased and replaced with the irrepressible urge to FEED, FEED NOW, FEED MUCH, FEED OFTEN.  And so our imaginary baby-Mommy exchange went something like this:

You want a bottle, sweet baby?

NO.  FEEL POO.

But you need to eat.

NO EAT.  WILL YACK.

I think you need to eat.

NOOOO

I will go make you a bottle.

DON'T LEAVE!!!  MOMMY IS THE WORLD!!

Just a second, sweetie.  Gonna put you down for just a second...

NOOOOOOO WORLD SUCKING WORMHOLE WHERE IS MOOOOOOOOOM?!?!

I'm almost done.... You're okay, baby, you're okay!

YYYYEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGHHH IT'S ALL OVERRRRRRRR 

Here I am, honey!  And I have a bottle!

*SNIF* *HIC*  OH, YOU BACK.  OHHHHHH MOMMY.  I CAN SPLAT ON YOU.  *FLOP* *SIGH*

Heeere's lunch!

NYAH.

Want a bite of sweet peas?

YYYYERGH.

Just....take....the bottle..... Need milk....

UH-UH.  UUUNH!   NERRRRRRRR!  *pop*

There ya go!  Just had to get going....

-two minutes later-

UH, MA....

Uh-oh.

GGGGGGLLARBBPFFFT!!!!!!!

....and every time,  EVERY STINKING TIME, it was like a huge surprise that she had contributed yet another layer of yellow paint on the walls.  

Now, I would like to share with you a handful of factuals I have gleaned from this valuable learning opportunity:

Upon the onset of a stomach bug, give clear fluids and plenty of couch snuggles....and nothing else for awhile.  The writhing, cramping stomach muscle in there needs a break.

Stop feeding, even when you think baby should not be full.  Everyone's appetite is different from day to day.  If you overfeed baby, chances are the overabundance will end forcibly ejected, anyway. It's better to keep a little down than to lose a lot on your loafers.

And next time Ava comes down with a typical stomach bug, I will hopefully recall this nerve-trying, sleep-deprived episode and resist the urge to force-feed her rich dairy, gagworthy purees, and meatballs.

"This bug has got me lookin' so crazy right now...."

Trade

The first night in a week and a half that I've had more than two hours of sleep, and I'm up at five a.m. with a bowl of cereal and a jillion thoughts hopping around like popcorn in my head.  I feel more refreshed than I have the right to be for keeping such hours....maybe that's my body rewarding me for all the late night mommying shifts I've been pulling.

I have some glad news to share, just in time for the holidays: Ava's appetite decided to drop back in on us while we were all iced in at home over the past weekend!  I was so thrilled, I fed her anything that I thought she could chew --  carrot mush, yogurt, pickles, bits of soft blueberry cereal, mashed potatoes clogged with butter and nutmeg, mashed baked beans -- everything but the dog chow in Honey's bowl.  And it was FUN.  Ava would get so wound up in response, I would have to wait for her to stop dancing and waggling her head back and forth after every bite in order to hit my aim with the baby spoon (lest I accidentally poke her in the uvula.  YOW.)

Her oral formula intake went from a hard-fought six ounces (average) to a strong, eager fourteen.  We still kept her on the pump at a low rate through most of the day and during her evening sleep, but this sudden shift in dedication to her bottle made us feel that Christmas had arrived early.  Now I spend quite a bit of the day curled up with her in the nursery glider, contentedly administering ounce after ounce.  There's no fight, no fidget.  It might still take her awhile to finish a bottle at her speed, but the way I see it, we're making up precious snuggle time that we lost back this summer.  

On the flip side of this lucky coin, it seems as if we've traded appetite for the ability to sleep soundly -- the very day her appetite began to perk up, Daddy and I woke in alternating shifts to soothe the fitful whimpering and tossing going on in the bassinet next to us.  (And before you raise your eyebrow at us for keeping our eleven month old in our room instead of hers, kindly recall that she sleeps hooked up to a machine that sometimes makes her sick with the force of Old Faithful.  We will NOT sleep more than an arm's length from her until this subsides.)

At first, we thought that she was "going through a phase", as this seems to be the typical explanation for behavior a parent or doctor can't explain.  She would sleep like an angel for two hours, then the flop-a-thon would commence, punctuated by little sobs.  

I guess it's just our turn to be the bleary-eyed parents for awhile, and that's fine.  Of all the wackiness we've been through with our silly guppy, a "difficult phase" almost seems reassuringly.....normal.  And hey, it's a fair excuse to drink cup after cup of very good coffee.  So if we're on your Christmas list, put Ava down for a jar of dill chips and her zombified Ma and Da for a bag of nice, full-bodied Sumatra.  

Here's to lovingly guided progress and excessive caffeination!

Cheers, Merry Christmas & Jubilate Deo!

The "Clenneycicles"

Wrap It Up, I'll Take It

Yesterday, I figured out what my Mushpuff would tell me she wants for Christmas,

If indeed she could talk:

The waxed paper from the examination table at the docor's office.

To her, it is the best and most cleverly constructed toy

In the history of all contrived amusements.

Bananas

Any parent can get caught up in a cycle of worrying over their child's growth and development.  

Being the kind of person prone to levels of anxiety that rivals every Richard Pryor character ever filmed, I'm beginning to notice that I go through cycles of getting knotted up over how Ava will be doing in a year instead of focusing on simply doing the next thing, which is how Daddy and I agreed we would raise her.

Let me give you an example of how this gets out of hand:

Ava isn't very hungry one day.  She takes a bit less of her morning bottle than she normally does, then promptly ejects it.  I worry that her stomach isn't digesting quickly enough to keep up with as many calories as she needs. 

 Why can't she eat in the morning without tossing her cookies?  Am I holding her wrong?  Will her stomach get stronger, or is that even the issue?

Later, I attempt to pack Ava's lunch with a heavier caloric punch by stirring butter into her sweet potato mush.  She takes three bites willingly before refusing to eat anything but dissolvable corn puffs, which have the nutritional density of a dirty baseball.  

am  I being a crummy parent by allowing her to enjoy anything but whole food?

I give her a sweet pickle just to keep her chewing, hoping that it will stir her gastric juices enough to wake up her tummy and ramp up a greater demand for nourishment.  She closes her fat fast on it and slurps intently for about thirty seconds, then pitches it onto the carpet below where it becomes a dog hair magnet.  So goes the second hairy pickle.  And the third.  

Good grief, we're going to go broke before we get more food in her than on the floor!  Then she'll always be hungry, and if i can't teach her how to eat, she'll end up all sick and sad like one of those dogs on the #%|£! Sarah McLaughlin ASPCA commercials!

It's evening, and we're all vegetated on the couch, enjoying our first holiday viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.  Without much fanfare or warning, Ava just barfs.  

Oh, this poor child!  How is she ever going to grow?  Her four month old cousin is eating three times as much!  What if she barfs until she's two?  What if she barfs EVERY DAY for the rest of her life?  What if we find out she can't properly digest anything but boiled rice and bananas and then there's a banana blight and all the bananas in the world just DIE, and then all the monkeys in the world who lived on the bananas just DIE, AND THEN AVA WILL NEVER GO TO THE ZOO AND SEE MONKEYS EATING NOTHING BUT BANANAS SO SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO FEEL ALONE IN THIS SCREWED-UP, BANANA-BARE WORLD?!?!?

 (Ava hates bananas, by the way....just like her Mommy. I think they taste like Elmer's Glue and I can't even stand the sound of someone eating one.)

So you see how things can get a little out of hand -- how I can end up in the shower after Ava's bedtime sobbing softly to myself because ALL THE MONKEYS ARE GONNA DIE, I JUST KNOW IT!!!!

And then I dry off, 

And put on my pajamas,

And curl  up in bed next to Daddy,

And fall asleep absolutely exhausted from worrying.

And when I wake up in the morning, there's a perfectly happy, fatty, petite little ten month old reaching for me with her silly-Milly grin on her face that says, "YAYYYYY, IT'S MORNING!  LET'S DO IT ALL AGAIN!"

And somehow, I'll feed myself the reassurance that she'll be just fine.  She'll be hungry sometimes, then barfy sometimes, and happy and grumpy and overexcited at times, and I'll think to myself, Hey, the sun came up in the same place and yet somehow, things are different.  They're okay.

And then I'll handle life just fine.... For awhile.  

Grace

"...and now, let the weak say I am strong,

Let the poor say I am rich

Because of what The Lord has done for us;

Give thanks..."

- "Give Thanks", by Don Moen

Dear God,

I don't know where to start thanking You for the mercy you've shown our family this year.  I would not ask that a minute of confusion or fear we might have experienced be rescinded, because I can clearly see how such moments fortified our hearts with a steadiness and trust that is learned only when we follow you across dark waters without looking down in disbelief.

I know that You don't require me to make a checklist of your recent miracles involving our daughter just because it's Thanksgiving, but in my typically selfish way, I think I need to see some written down here in this space so folks other than you and I know of some of the everyday miracles that encourage us so much.

I thank you for a communicative child.  I am so grateful that she is able to express with clarity what her needs and wants are (as much as an infant possibly can).  If she had been more difficult to decipher, there's no telling what state her health would be in now.  

I thank you that Ava has the drive and desire to try with all her might to do things that are physically challenging for her.  When she takes a tumble because she's knocked herself off balance reaching for a faraway toy, my heart swells with pride because she was bold enough to go beyond her comfort zone to go after what she had her eye on.  

I thank you that we have the means to feed Ava through her button when she can't take enough by mouth to keep up with her needs.  Please give me wisdom and insight as we explore new methods of food preparation and eating which encourage her development.

I thank you for compassionate friends and family who have been our buoys when we felt drowned in responsibilities and difficult choices.  

I thank you for the therapists who seem to enjoy watching Ava respond so well to their guidance.  

I thank you that she has health insurance.  We'd be up a creek without it.

I thank you for all the children at church who are so excited to see her every time we walk through the door.  It moves me so much to watch them play with 

her and watch them swoop in to the rescue when they think someone or something has upset her.  It's so important to me that she grows up to know that she is an important and beautiful square in the social quilt of our community, and I think these kids are sewing her right up into it without a second thought.

And in my own cross-eyed kind of way, I want to thank you for the innate ability you instill in new mothers to perform all manner of taxing tasks while their sleep-fueled engine is running on fumes.  When I ask for rest, you either provide it generously or you renew my strength to make it to the coffeepot.  

Remind me every moment throughout this holiday season that your footprints precede wherever I may roam, and your fingerprints are all over everything set my hand to (even the pumpkin pie I accidentally doused with smoked paprika last night....  Maybe that was your way of telling me to GO TO BED so I wouldn't be such a weary grump when the family comes over this evening).  

Thank you for Ava's first Thanksgiving.

Our bottle runneth over.  

Like a Champ

Ava is becoming a munchmaster!

For all the issues she's had with bottle feeding, Ava seems oblivious to past feeding problems when she's got a tray full of NOMables in front of her.

We started with the typical purées cereals -- oatmeal or rice mixed with the gentlest of nature's offerings, such as apple, banana, or sweet potato -- and quickly deduced that her palate responded best to strong tastes.  For instance, she'll gum at some squash mush disinterestedly until I add a squirt of mustard.  Now THAT'S a party in your mouth, she seems to think.

Once I figured this out, I grew bolder.  I stopped buying Banana Creme puffs, opting for semi-spicy sounding alternatives like Garden Tomato and Ranch.  When we would go to eat at a Mexican restaurant (which you must learn to do as an Arkansan, lest you starve), I would give her avocado smush with a dressing of lemon, or a dot of salsa on a spoonful of queso blanco.  I'd try to hide my shock as Ava gobbled each offering then thumped the table with her thumb, which in her private sign language means, More, Here, Now.

And now, after a couple of months of practicing with dissolvable puffs, I suddenly noticed her little tongue going through the motions of rolling food around her mouth while her gums did a fairly convincing job of mincing like teeth. Hey, I thought, that looks an awful lot like chewing!  Let's stick something chewABLE in there and see what happens....

And so I gave her a pickle chip.  She pinched it and placed it in her mouth with the utmost caution.... And then her eyes lit up like Clark Griswold's Christmas display and the angels sang as she thought, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE, THOU CUCUMBER OF THE ANGELS???"

It's going to be an interesting Turkey Day.

Keys

BANG!

Why Ava Is Easier Than Pugs

Why Ava is easier than pugs 

We used to have pugs.

As far as dog breeds go, they're way up on the top of my list.  They possess layers of squeezable fat rolls (even when they're skinny, they still manage maintain a few).  Their personalities are commonly gregarious and agreeable, and they know no better than to believe that the whole world is their friend.  They expect nothing more than foo from the table and pats on the head.

But there's a dark side, too... Which is why I have officially decided that raising Ava is much easier than raising pugs.

To illustrate, I will present a few examples in which to compare our two cuddly subjects:

Situation #1:  Mommy's muscles are aching and her head is pounding from a long day of taking care of Mommyish things.  What do you do?

Ava's answer:  Allow Mommy to place me in a buzzy bouncer seat next to the tub where I will play contentedly with the toys that dangle from the bar above my head.  Occasionally I will babble something cute to signal to Mommy that I am still happy to be doing exactly what she wants me to do.  

Pug's answer:  Slam the flat of my head against the jammed bathroom door until it comes flying open, then take a flying leap onto Mommy while she's slumped in the water.  She will then perpetuate the game by springing from the tub, rolling up a magazine and tearing around the house in hot pursuit of me until she breaks down in tears because you're like "having a four-legged toddler who can run under furniture".

Situation #2:  Daddy has set out a decorative bowl of Holiday Hershey's Kisses on the coffee table.  They are shiny and presumably yummy.  What can be done about this?

Ava's answer:  Rake my fingers across the bowl and gingerly pick one up and flap it from side to side by its little flag.  Receive praise for honing my fine motor skills, as I learned in therapy.  Remain blissfully unaware that this item is edible...at least for a few more months.

Pug's answer:  Wait until Mommy and Daddy are away, then stand on the glass coffee table and consume every single one of the kisses (being careful to spit out the foil wrappers somehow), as well as a few Christmas tree ornaments for good measure.  Spend the rest of the evening soaking up their attention as they prepare for your imminent demise....which surprisingly, considering how much caffeine you ingested, never arrives.

Situation #3:  You have to take a whiz.  

Ava's answer:  Let loose in your Luvs, then keep playing.  Mommy will catch a whiff and change them soon.  

Pug's answer:  Go pee outside.  Let Mommy see you pee outside.  Then save up just enough piddle to pee on the rug, the formal living room sofa, and the pile of clothes in the closet.  Wait for Daddy to ask Mommy why she didn't just let you outside to pee.

Situation 4:  You've just finished dinner, and Mommy scoops the remainder of your baby food and her and Daddy's spaghetti into a scrap container which will eventually be scraped clean outdoors.  You might still be a bit hungry.  

Ava's solution:  Flap your chubby little arms and declare "Bah!" until Mommy sits you down with a bottle.

Pug's solution:  Wait until Mommy puts you outside to attend to your business, then track down the pile of food refuse that's been dumped at the edge of the yard and whork it down as fast as you can.  Run inside and find the lightest shade of carpet in the house, then commence to act as a firehose of twice-eaten tomato sauce and spread the love.  Really project while Daddy is running you out the door like a quarterback on fire.

As you can see, both child-rearing and pug ownership come with their own unique set of precious memories.  And believe it or not, for every palm-to-the-forehead moment we had with Jarmo, Amos and Delilah, there were ten others filled with snuggles and fun to make up for them.  

When we became pregnant with Ava, I swore that we wouldn't be THOSE people who dumped their animals as soon as we had a new baby to focus on.  I knew I could make it work, somehow.  

And then, after weeks of hospital stays and grating stress, I knew that we couldn't be the attentive owners that we needed to be.  It was stupid of me just to hold onto them for the sake of pride, knowing that they'd never understand why they were locked up so much.

So they went to live on a farm.

NO, not the proverbial farm.  An actual goat farm in Texas.  One I found through a local pug rescue.

Maybe one day in the far future when Ava is much older and Mommy and Daddy's nerves are sufficiently mended, we might consider giving Ava a pug of her own.  They're so sweet and patient with kids.  Or at least ours was.  

But one Sqwoosh is enough for me right now.

X.

Dear Ava Leigh,

Today you are ten months old.  (When I tell people, I must say it with a lisp and they exclaim, "TWO MONTHS?" and ogle you in wonder as you sit up and wave at them.  Oh well.  I'll never see them again.  I hope.)

It breaks my heart and fills me with joy both at once.  I always thought that parents were being melodramatic when they yabbered on about how "they grow up so fast" and how they'd "blink, and my baby is eighteen."

Well, I'm here to tell you they were RIGHT. This growing up stuff is for REAL.  

Whyyyyyyyyyy?

Ugh, I need a stuff shot of Ovaltene to get through this entry.

Before I send you on an eye-rolling spree, let me first say that your Daddy and I will do our best to reign in our fears of the world enough to allow you to do things appropriate for your age (and as I'm writing this, I'm having daymares of some punk in a jalopy picking you up for prom).  I just wish you could begin to comprehend the feeling of watching your helpless, needy newborn turn into an assertive little girl with preferences and reactions all her own. 

A part of me thrills to watch you discover how helpless you AREN'T.

For example, if they're a toy or a sock within close proximity to you, I have no doubt you'll roll or reach toward wherever you need to retrieve it from in order to put it in its rightful place -- your mouth.  And while you prefer some of your toys over others, dang, girl, you love a good flappy sock.

It gratifies me to know that all of the rhythmic drumming I've done with (and often on!) you is beginning to pay off in discernible ways; you definitely have a fascination with interesting rhythms.  Bah humbug on Baby Bach, you seem to say; bring on Beyonce and The Black-Eyed Peas!

We've recently discovered that the tune that revs you the most is the theme song to Big Bang Theory (which I accidentally just wrote as "tehroy".  Honey, you  MUST LET MOMMY SLEEP A LITTLE!).  I can watch your expression go from piqued to gleeful as soon as the Barenaked Ladies get to the "the earth began to cool...." section of the song.  As they say here in Grant county, it gets you as stirred up as a stomp-head moccasin (and for those living above the Mason-Dixon, I refer to the snake, not the shoe). You waggle your little red head, you slap your fatty thigh, and sometimes you clap your itty palms.  

All the single babies, all the single babies.....

Which brings me to another thing which signals to me that you're really growing up -- you like to impose yourself on your surrounding environment.  Whether you're kicking your bath water out of the tub or pulling cousin Ana's bib over her face (no, NO!), your curiosity makes the world your playground.  

Something that gives me perspective on how much you've grown up is how you now have expectations toward other people. You express your needs toward me because I'm the one who gets to keep you all day and meet them (for which I will forever be grateful to Daddy, who works so hard to support us).  Then when Daddy walks through the door, you know that he's your playmate and jungle gym.  Aunt JessJess is the one who helps you do your baby flail jump (otherwise known as the ice cream and cake dance).  Pawpaw is the fellow with the yankable beard.  Granny always sits down to show you a book.  You seem to have come to a point where you expect these engagements from each of us and you enjoy them -- unless, of course, you're beyond tired but don't want the fun to end, and you're alternately laughing and boohooing....then it's Mommy to the rescue!

I dig gettin' my cuz buzz on....

 ...but we wear each other out.

I really can't believe that you're sooooo big (which I often say in the same saccharine voice as your Fisher-Price sing-along puppy toy), and sooooo smart.  You've been saying "da-da" for nearly two months, "ma-ma" when you're feeling frisky, "they-they-they" when you're being cheeky, and you like to whisper when other people are lowering their conversational volume, too (which I'm beginning to realize you like to use as bait to draw me closer so you can then blast me with a high-decibel "DAAA!").  I even catch you whispering during church as would any good Baptist.  So far, you seem to comprehend the meaning of "sssshhhh!" in such social situations..... for about thirty seconds at a time.

Your favorite mode of self-expression, though, is the raspberry, which is how most conversations with you end.....

As will this one.

I love you, Sqwoosh!

Mommy