The next plague: mastitis

My vexatious breasts are at it again, finding new and horrific ways to cause me grief. I suppose I should know better than to tempt fate with a question like “what’s next.” The answer is a rocking case of mastitis. Fever, chills, wretched body aches, and it feels like I have a ball of hot lead tucked into my right breast. Good times.

What really surprised me was how fast it came on. I had a bit of tenderness Tuesday night, and Lucas was being fussy feeding on that side. I figured I would have another blocked duct by morning, but had no idea how quickly it would become an infection. By midmorning yesterday I knew I was in trouble. Luckily, my GP saw me last night and I’m already on antibiotics. Yeah, lucky me.

Mastitis has always been my personal boogeyman, something I’ve been terrified of throughout my breastfeeding years. And as Stephen King observed, while the monster exposed can never be as frightening as the monster in the closet, it’s still pretty darn sucky. One more experience to add to my mothering portfolio. Pass the Advil, willya?

Solids: now or later?

As I mentioned, we had Lucas’s four-month checkup this week. He’s doing great! He’s maintaining his string-bean physique, bang-on the 50th percentile for weight, but 90th percentile for height at 14 lbs 12 oz and 27 inches long.

He’s still on the twice-daily rantidine for reflux, and still spitting up quite a bit. The ped asked me if I’ve considered starting him on rice cereal yet, as it must just help with the reflux. While I had considered it, I had pretty much decided to wait — but now I’m waffling. And now a certain influential person in my life has opined that Lucas might fuss less during the arsenic hours around dinner time if he had something to “stick to his ribs” and observed that I was on pablum at eight weeks and turned out okay. (Hi Mom!! *wink*)

Six years ago when Tristan was born, the wisdom of the time said start them on cereal at four months. By the time Simon came along two years later, “they” were advocating waiting until six months before starting on solids. I ended up starting him on apple sauce at four months anyway, because we were starting him on zantac for reflux and we sprinkled the contents of a caplet onto the applesauce.

I have also heard that the prevailing wisdom now says you start them on fruits or veggies first, then cereal. The ped said this is mainly for exclusively breast-fed babies, especially in families where allergies may be an issue, as there is formula in the rice cereal which can exacerbate milk allergies. We’re already supplementing Lucas with formula and have no known (touch wood) allergy issues, so he said to go ahead and start with the cereal when we do.

I may start him a little earlier, around five months or so, but he simply doesn’t seem to be ready to me. And, rather selfishly, starting solids is just one more extra bit of work and time in what’s turning out to be an incredibly busy time for us. That should start improving soon, now that Beloved is almost done for the summer. And watching a new baby eating from a spoon for the first time is one of mothering’s great pleasures, isn’t it?

(Ha, it occurs to me as I’m typing this that there may be psychological issues behind my reluctance to move Lucas on to the next phase. Think if I keep him off solids forever he’ll stay the cuddly, cute, bright-eyed little bundle that he is now for the rest of time? Never mind Lucas, it’s ME who isn’t ready to move on yet!)

Just curious — what did or will you do with your babies with regard to starting solids?

Duck and cover

One of my favourite Tragically Hip songs contains the lyric: “Like boots or hearts, oh when they start to fall apart, they really fall apart.” Yeah. We’re falling apart over here.

  • Lucas had his four-month vaccine yesterday, and like two months ago, he’s reacting to them. Poor guy is clingy and noticably off, and woke with a high-ish fever. Sigh.
  • I have a migraine.
  • We’re on day 175 of a humidity-dense heatwave. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t bother me too much, but with a migraine and a clingy, feverish baby who wants to be held all day, even the AC isn’t enough to keep the edge off my temper.
  • At 2 am, Beloved poked me awake and said, “There’s an alarm going off downstairs.” I called the non-emergency number for the fire department in between pushing the button to silence the howling carbon-monoxide detector every three minutes and he talked me through taking it off the wall and searching for an expiry date. When we couldn’t find one, just to be safe they sent out some firefighters (on a ladder truck!) with a CO detector. It was, thankfully, a false alarm. We have bad luck with false alarms, you might remember. This was apparently the carbon monoxide detector in its death throes. It took at least two hours for the adrenaline in my system to subside enough to get back to sleep.
  • While we were waiting for the fire department to arrive, I noticed that we seem to have an infestation of tiny ants coming in from the patio door in the kitchen. Given how bug-phobic I am, ants are not the worst possible invasion, but I am still not impressed. Ugh.

Bugs. Illnesses. Malfunctioning electronics. Weather. What’s the next plague, flood? No, don’t even think about it…

Smuggler’s Notch special deal just for you

You know I love you, right? And as my mother taught me, “if you love me, buy me things.” Well, I haven’t exactly bought something for you, but I do have some freebies and a great deal to offer, too.

First, the great deal. Remember when I told you earlier about how my friends at Smugglers’ Notch gave me my first writing credit for their resort magazine? Well, at the same time we worked out a special deal for any of you who might have been inspired enough by my most excellent and unbiased travel reporting to plan a family vacation at Smuggs for yourself.

Book any FamilyFest Summer Vacation Package at Smugglers’ Notch for this summer (June 13 – September 1, 2008) and tell them you want the “Postcards from the Mothership” deal, and you’ll get a 20% discount! In addition to the fun I blogged about last summer (remember the segways, the excellent day camp for kids, the waterslides and pools and mini-golf, not to mention the endless canoe trip?) this year they’ve got some cool new stuff like chocolate tasting and bike-boards (three-wheeled scooters) and adventures in kayaking and rock-climbing, plus a whole lot more.

If you go, let me know! I’d love to hear about it. And, as a self-appointed bloggy ambassador to Smuggs, I’d be happy to answer any questions about our trip. For more information and to make a reservation, visit the Smuggs website. Don’t forget to tell them you want the “Postcards from the Mothership” deal!

And now the freebies: the nice folks over at Hachette publishing sent out Mothers Day book packages to a handful of bloggers recently, and I’d like to share mine with you. These are the books they sent (minus a few I’ve already given away):

1. Your Best Life Now For Moms by Joel Osteen
2. How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger by Charla Krupp
3. Bobbi Brown Living Beauty by Bobbi Brown
4. Sew U Home Stretch: The Built by Wendy Guide to Sewing Knit Fabrics by Wendy Mullin & Eviana Hartman
5. Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50 by Michael Cunningham & Connie Briscoe
6. On Becoming Fearless: …in Love, Work, and Life by Arianna Huffington
7. Days: From the Heart of the Home by Susan Branch
8. Starting Your Day Right: Devotions for Each Morning of the Year by Joyce Meyer
9. Ending Your Day Right: Devotions for Every Evening of the Year by Joyce Meyer
10. Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles by Gloria Feldt and Kathleen Turner

If you’d like to win one, leave a comment… but not just any comment! Leave me a comment recommending a book that you have loved, or think I must read. Also, if you have a particular preference for one of the books listed, be sure to let me know.

I’ll leave this open for comments until June 15.

You should have seen the look on her face

Lesson learned: three things you should never say in the fitting room of a clothing store:

  1. Are you looking at me? Do you see me? (and, in a really, really bad Robert De Niro) Are YOU lookin’ at ME?
  2. Lookit those cheeks, you chubby thing!
  3. Peeky-peeky-peeky, I see you!!

I’m sure the woman in the next cubby has never been more relieved to see a woman emerge from a fitting room chattering at her baby.

The look of love

There are a lot of wonderful things about mothering a baby not quite four months old. It’s fascinating to watch his personality emerge, bright-eyed and curious and more than a little stubborn. (Fancy that! Who would have guessed it?) It’s equally fascinating to see him growing before my eyes, gaining folds and bursting through footie sleepers each time I blink. And the quest to make the baby laugh has turned into a competitive sport around here, with Beloved as the champion but closely followed by me and even the boys. Lucas loves to laugh, and often at the simplest of gestures.

Considering he’s not quite four months old, he has a pretty impressive arsenal of communication tools. He coos up a storm, talking happily to himself or his hands. He cries with an impressive bellow, and it melts my heart when he sees me coming to give him the attention he is demanding and immediately smiles through his tears. And I had forgotten how much I love the “stick out your tongue” game. I remember playing this with Tristan if not Simon, but Lucas seems to be the champion, and I’m still astonished that it’s a game that can be played with such a young baby. If you stick out your tongue at him, he immediately sticks his tongue back out at you. He’s become so adept at this that it’s become a bit of a salute; when he knows he has your attention, out comes the little pink tongue in a drooley greeting. It’s clear from the sparkle of delighted accomplishment in his eyes that the exchange is intentional, and understood by him as such. I don’t remember how long this phase lasts, but I hope it’s quite a while!

But my very favourite part of mothering this lovely little boy of mine who still wants to be held all of his waking hours and many of his sleeping ones as well? It’s the look, that adoring, worshipful gaze he bestows upon me when I least expect it. He studies my features with intense concentration, as if burning each freckle into his newly-firing synapses, and then a smile sweeps over his dewy face like sunshine on a summer day, and I truly fear my heart might burst. All the injustices of the world are forgiven, all the wrongs are righted, and the universe is a place of blissful joy when I am bathed by the glow of that loving gaze.

How can anyone ever recover from such love? In all my long years of being loved, and I am lucky to say I’ve been loved by the best, nobody has loved me with the shining and silent adoration of my four-month-old son.

Lucas

To price or not to price

If the weather forecast holds true, we’ll be holding what has turned out to be our annual garage sale this weekend. I’m feeling particularly ruthless and in need of a good purge this year… everything must go! Three boys for the price of two, and I’ll throw in a well-broken in and still in prime condition husband for free!

We’re finally carpeting the basement to turn it into a proper playroom for the boys, so a lot of stuff I have stashed down there has to go — like the papasan chair I so adored when we got it as a wedding present nine years ago but has languished as a cat bed these past few years, and the book cases used primarily to store my class notes and essays from university. (The papers will stay, just in a different hidey-hole. I’m not feeling THAT ruthless!)

It’s also time to start recycling some of the boys’ lesser-used toys. I’ve been keeping nearly everything for Lucas, but recently realized he’s going to be adding his own share to the collection through his birthdays and other gift-worthy events. I’ll keep the really good stuff like the Thomas trains and the Little People garage, but we can probably part with the Caillou treehouse we bought for $2 at another garage sale four years ago, and our collection of Hot Wheels cars and Rescue Heroes could do with a little pruning. I imagine I’ll have to either banish the boys to Granny’s house for the duration, or offer them at least some sort of compensation for parting with toys they haven’t even glanced at in the last year or two. I might even let them take back one item each from the piles I put out — think it will work?

I’m vacillating between putting little masking tape prices on everything, and just leaving items unpriced for best-offer. What do you think? Myself, I hate it when things don’t have prices on them at yard sales and often won’t even inquire about the price unless I find something I really like. I’m also not much of a haggler, and always feel a little foolish when I try. On the other hand, I’m often willing to take just about any price to get rid of something during a garage sale I’m hosting, and would hate for someone to walk away just because they’re put off by the price sticker.

What’s your preference, price or no price?

We now return to our regularly scheduled blogging

Sorry about the downtime. I dunno what happened, but my host’s server crashed in a big way. They said they fixed it around midnight last night, but I was still getting funky error messages that you might have seen if you dropped by earlier today. After raising four tickets in eight hours, all of which they ignored, I took matters into my own damn hands and restored my own database and upgraded my WordPress installation to boot.

And I cooked up a mean pot of chili while I was doing it!

Sorry about the interruption.

It’s official: I’m a writer!

Long time readers and friends (hmmm, that may be redundant) know that I have always harboured not-so-secret dreams of being a “real” writer.

You might argue that I already am a writer in that my day job (in that other life that still lurks outside of maternity leave) since a large part of my job comprises stringing words together in a way that is meaningful. It’s rarely creative, though — at least, not in the conventional sense.

You might have more success in arguing that through blog, I have come closer to earning the title of “writer.” I write regularly for an audience, often with at least a certain amount of craft and attention to style, voice and narrative. In accepting paid advertising and other compensation, I’ve even been remunerated for my writing. All very nice, and all writerly sorts of things to do. But somewhere in my head, I’ve always felt I wouldn’t be an official “writer” until someone commissioned an article and published it, and was even kind enough to pay me for my efforts.

That day has finally come.

Remember last summer, when the nice folks over at Smuggler’s Notch offered us a free weekend getaway at the resort, all for the simple effort of blogging it? Well, my contact there sent me an e-mail just after Lucas was born saying congratulations on the new baby, and oh, by the way, would you be interested in writing an article for our resort magazine? I was barely a month postpartum, hormonal and sleep deprived. I couldn’t write a coherent grocery list, let alone be creative and wordy enough to write an actual essay. Of course I said yes.

The theme was “taking a walk on the wild side” and the idea the editor wanted to pursue was adventures with your kids. I took my original blog post on our canoe trip from hell and polished it up a bit to turn it into a freestanding article (click on the link that says “Family Adventure: Who Needs Wildlife When You’ve Got Kids” near the bottom of the page.) In re-reading it, there are a few things I would change, but it’s not bad for a first try, especially one written when I considered it a good day to get my teeth brushed by dinner time.

The resort magazine has a circulation of about 17,000, so it has the potential to be read by quite a few eyeballs. And of course, I stuck the blog address in my byline.

My first published article. One more item to check off on my life-long to-do list. I’m so proud of me!!

I’ll bet you didn’t even know I was gone

Three tanks of gas: $240
DVD player to replace the one that died 35 minutes into a 20 hour road trip: $129
Upgrade hotel room to a two-room suite for two nights (invaluable!): $80
Toll highway to bypass Hwy 401 rush hour traffic (worth every penny): $26

Five day road trip to take the boys to see both sets of cousins:

Beloved's family

Dani's family

Priceless.