Another Elise!!!

So. This girl that I had one class with my first year of graduate school-- a friend of a friend sort of person-- and who, consequently, is one of my "friends" on a social networking website has just given birth to a little girl AND NAMED HER ELISE.

Okay. If I walked into a party (this is a fantasy, of course, because with three babies you don't WALK anywhere-- you sort of slide-drag-shuffle-stumble) and someone was wearing the same dress that I had on, I would not be like, "Oh my god, I'm mortified." I'd be like, "Thank god some one else liked that dress, too... I feel validated." Plus, I'm sure that my boobs would look better in the dress anyway, because I AM breastfeeding after all. But that's not the point. Same dress, cool, whatever. But name your baby the same wonderful baby name that I picked out for my own perfect baby? I want to claw your eyes out.

Maybe I'm exaggerating.

Not really, though.

I picked "Elise" in part because it's a name that's cool but not trendy. And if other people start using it, it will be trendy. Ugh! How awful would it be to have been, like, six months ahead of the "Madison" explosion?

Even though my Elise is the best Elise, I want to stop other Elises altogether. One Elise per social networking circle, please. One Elise per school district. One Elise per office building.

Follow my made up baby naming rules, people!

Reinventing the Wheel

Elise has realized that she can get to wherever she wants to go by rolling back to front to back to front across the floor. Tonight she rolled under the bed in her room and played with the bed spread that was hanging down.

So that's it. She will forever be asserting her independence. Rolling away from me. Breaking my heart.

Some Days Are Better Than Others

Today sucked.

I'm sick. But I'm a mom, so I have things to do.

One of those things was take my foster daughter to the doctor. Here, foster kids are supposed to be seen by a doctor within 48 hours of coming into care. We've had our new foster babies for over a week now. We were able to get the 3 month old to a doctor, but my foster daughter's insurance stuff is all messed up. I've been working on getting this problem straightened out since day one. Finally, I make an appointment at what I thought was the only doctor in the whole frickin' state who is able to see her. I get her ready first thing this morning and drive her (and Elise) to some rinkydink town over an hour away, only to be told upon our arrival that her messed up insurance messed up again and they can't accept the messed up insurance at the doctor's office.

In all fairness, the people at the doctor's office were super, super nice. It was not their fault.

I sat in the waiting room with a bored 22 month old and an even more bored Elise and proceeded to make phone call after phone call. Apparently no one who works for the state is obligated to come into work on Fridays. Bastards. No one who answered any of my phone calls could help me.

So finally, after a brief and hopefully somewhat quiet sob or two, I asked the doctor if they would just see my foster daughter anyway and let me pay for the visit out of my own pocket. They said yes and even reduced the price for me.

Then I realized that I forgot some of the paperwork I needed to bring with me. I had to call Husband and have him run home to get it and fax it to the doctor's office. It was a mess.

Did I mention that I feel like shit? Sore throat, swollen tonsils, sniffles, and a pounding headache.

So, I'm glad that today's over. Done. I'll deal with this insurance crap on Monday.

(The ladies at the doctor's office commented on what a good baby Elise is, so quiet and sweet. She is a good baby. I'm lucky. The ladies also commented on how much happier my foster daughter seemed compared to the last few visits she had made there with her mother. That made me feel good, like I was doing a good job caring for her. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?)

The Beginning

Since I was a teenager, there were two things about me that any potential long-term partner needed to know. 1) I would not ever be changing my last name (unless my partner's last name was being changed, too), and 2) I planned to eventually adopt a child.

I've wanted to adopt since I was about 14 years old. There are adoptees in my family, but that's not why. The idea really clicked with me one day when I was being driven home from babysitting by the baby's father. We were talking about our siblings and the guy told me about his brother, adopted from Vietnam.

The father told me about how he was old enough to remember when his brother was adopted. How he remembers meeting him for the first time at the airport. And how it felt like he was always a part of their family and he couldn't imagine life without his little brother.

I knew from then on that I was meant to grow my family through adoption. When Husband and I talked about it, he admitted that adoption isn't something that he'd have sought on his own, but he was open to the idea.

Husband and I know that we want at least one more child. We became foster parents with the hope of adopting.

We'll get to adopt eventually-- just got to be patient.

Busy Yesterday/ Umbilical Hernia Update

If I hadn't been so busy yesterday, here's what I would have posted about:

My umbilical hernia still isn't completely healed. It isn't bothering me though, and it doesn't look crazy. My intestines aren't sitting in my lap or anything. So, whatevs. I'll just deal with it. My belly button will never look the same again. Oh well.

If someone said, "In exchange for the most perfect baby in the world, you must stretch out your belly button," I would say, "Umm... you're a weird genie... but it's a deal!"

More Baby Names

Here are a few more real-life babies that I know of:

Brayden, David, Juliet, Kayla, Richard, Sunny, Victoria, War

Also, I saw a Natalya at the doctor's office.

I read the other day that names from the "Twilight" series of books have shot way up the name popularity charts. So we'll have to wait and see how many Cullens there are in Elise's kindergarten class.

Finding A Routine

Since the new babies have arrived, Elise's routines have been shot to hell. Sleep patterns, feeding patterns, EC-- everything is out of whack. Husband and I are trying to get a good routine going, but it takes some effort. Kids love routines, right? But it still takes a 2 year old some getting used to if she's never had a solid routine before.

One of the things I've struggled with as a foster parent who has a biological child is wondering whether I'm being unfair to my own baby. In my heart I know that Elise is being very well taken care of. And I want her to grow up to be a loving and compassionate person. Someone who understands that love is the most important thing in the world. And someone who wants to help other living things grow and overcome adversity. I don't want to turn her off to these ideas because she felt forced into sharing her parents or felt neglected by us.

But seriously, lots of kids have siblings. Few people in the world get ALL of their parents' attention all of the time. This isn't so different from what it would be like if Elise had a brother and a sister, other than the fact that it was a sudden change, not a 9 month build-up.

Our family changes over time more than most families do. Hopefully eventually we'll be able to adopt and then there will be a bit more stability for Elise, for us, and for our adopted foster children.

Baby Baby Has A Heart of Gold

I've told Elise every day since the new babies have arrived, "You are such a sweet girl for sharing your Mommy and Daddy with other babies whose Mommy and Daddy can't take care of them right now."

Elise has done well. She's been very good.

It's taken some adjusting to. Simple things are suddenly difficult with three babies in the mix. Husband and I ventured out today with all 3 of the kids. It went over just fine.

It's hard, but I think we can do this.

Damn You, Karma!

All that time I spent thinking, "Thank GOD I don't have twins!" and then Elise gets a foster brother 2 months younger than her. Virtual twins.

Three babies.

There has never before been so much milk or poop, or so many tears in my house.

Or cuteness.

In all fairness, there's a whole lot of cuteness here, now, too.

Bottoms Up!

Today, Elise figured out how to get her legs up underneath of herself during tummy time. She could get her little butt waaaaaaay up in the air. No crawling yet, though. Just frustrated, leg kicking, baby yelling booty wiggling.

Two New Foster Kids

We got two foster kids placed in our home last night. Siblings. Not-quite-2-year-old girl and 2 month old boy. We have 3 kids under 2 years old. Our house is crazyville.

Too tired to say any more right now.

Vitamin D Drops

We've started giving Elise vitamin D drops. Doctors recommend this now for breast fed babies because they think that there isn't enough vitamin D in mommy milk. Our doctor mentioned the drops at Elise's 2 month check up. He and I had a lengthy discussion about it.

Your body makes vitamin D when you go out in the sun. Back in the day, babies probably set around outside a lot while their mothers gathered or tanned animal hides or whatever. But now babies sit around inside while their mommies clean dishes or watch Oprah.

I'm a big believer in "breast is best" so I had a hard time at first believing that my breast milk was anything less than perfect for Elise. BUT, I guess that times have changed and evolution didn't plan for the advent of Netflix or Hulu.

Even still, I live in a sunny place and Elise has fair skin. She is at no risk for rickets. Doctor Cutie-pants confirmed this. What got me convinced that we should do the vitamin D drops is that there are possible long term benefits to having a good amount of vitamin D in infancy. Reduced risk of certain diseases later in life.

SO, vitamin D drops it is, Doc!

Elise hates them. Does her best to spit the liquid out. She'll get used to it, though. The drops smell sweet, like candy. She'll be begging for them before long.

First Batch of Homemade Baby Food!

Elise will be starting solids in about a month and a half. The homemade baby foods that can be frozen keep for about 3 months, so I figure that it's time to start stocking up. I made my first batch last night. Applesauce made with organic gala apples. (Gala apples are a sweeter variety.)

Here's how I made it.

I washed and peeled 4 apples. Then I cut them into little chunks. (Obviously, you don't use the core of the apple.) I put them in a sauce pan with about 1 inch of water in the bottom and brought the apples and water to a boil. Then I reduced the heat to low, covered the sauce pan, and simmered the apples for 10 minutes to make them tender (but not a mushy mess). After that, I scooped the apples out of the water and put them through my hand-crank food grinder (the one that Fresh From Florida Kids sent for free for signing up on their website).

Once the applesauce was done, I put it into the holes of an ice cube tray and put it in the freezer. That's where it is now. Four apples made one ice cube tray full. Magzilla recommended buying some baby food jars for use in the future, and I'm going to look into that.

I tasted the applesauce. It was good! I would serve it as part of an adult dinner.

I'll have to thin the applesauce down for Elise at first. I'll just use breast milk instead of water. The recipe I found said to thin the applesauce with cooking water, but I think that milk will be much more nutritious. And make the flavor more familiar.

I'm not going to start Elise on applesauce when she begins solids, though. I think we're going to start with avocado. You just scoop avocado out of the skin and mash it up. No cooking necessary. So I don't need to prepare that ahead of time. I do think that I'll start eating avocado every once in a while, so the flavor gets into Elise's milk and it's a little more familiar. I've had avocado plenty of times before, but it's not something I eat on a regular basis.

Solids! So exciting!

Rawr!

The past few days, Elise's cute little babbly coos have given way to growls. "Growl" isn't the perfect word to describe what she's doing, but it's as close as I can get to explaining the guttural noises she's been making.

She doesn't growl for any particular reason, it seems. Its not because she's happy or sad or frustrated. She'll just be playing with her toys or looking at my face or getting danced around by Husband and then, "Rrrrrrgggrrrraaarrrnnn."

I guess she's just figuring out how her little voice box works.

Even her growls are cute!

Baby Vision

I read somewhere that by the time they are 4 months old babies can see with 20/60 vision and they are starting to see colors. A whole new world for Baby Elise!

I believe the color thing for sure because Elise is facinated with yellow now. It really catches her eye. Yellow and anything shiny.

Sort Of Sleep Training

Elise was sleeping through the night there for a while, then she started waking up one or two times every night again. I've noticed over the past several weeks that when Elise wakes up in the middle of the night and I offer her the opportunity to nurse, she suckles for a while and then promptly falls back to sleep. I'd started thinking, "She's not eating, she just wants help going back to sleep."

Then I read in a book that by four months old, babies can sleep through the night because they don't need to eat for the up-to-10-hours that they might sleep. This thing I was reading was talking about "sleep training" which advocates that whole "let your baby cry it out" mentality. I'm not for that. I just can't let Elise cry and not try to help her feel better.

BUT

I don't want to "train" Elise to wake up at 2:30 every night, just to have me pick her up and nurse her. Especially if she doesn't need it.

So four nights ago I started an experiment. She usually sleeps from around 8:30 p.m. or so until about 10:30, then she wants to eat. I still let her have her 10:30 feeding. But from 10:30 to around 4:30 a.m. (another time she regularly feeds), I decided that I wouldn't feed her or pick her up out of her bassinet. Six hours. This eliminates her 2:30 a.m. feeding.

I decided that when she wakes up and cries, I would change her diaper, talk to her, touch her, and sing to her, but not pick her up or feed her.

The first two nights, Elise was not happy about the new arrangement. Though, in all fairness, she cried for a while the first night, but once she gave a good, loud fart she was okay. So it might have just been gas.

Elise began to realize that she could comfort herself by sucking on her fingers. And that's what she does now.

She does not seem to miss the 2:30 feeding. She slept just fine the past two nights, without waking up at 2:30. She adapted to the new schedule very quickly. In fact, she got hungry around 9:45 last night and was in her bassinet by 10:00 instead of 10:30.

I hope this sticks! I forgot how nice it is to sleep through the night.

Swaddling Ban

The other night, Elise tried to roll over in her bassinet. She got caught against the side, which fortunately is made of mesh. Her face was pressed into the side, her head was cocked back funny, she was tilted at an angle, and she started screaming. It scared me. And made me very glad that I don't have a bumper or pillow or other fluffy thing along the side of Elise's bed.

So that's it. No more swaddling. Period. I don't want to wake up one morning to see a blanket wrapped around Elise's head. Sometimes she gets her swaddling blanket undone, and now that she rolls around in her bed, I think it's too dangerous to keep swaddling her.

She doesn't sleep as well unswaddled. But she'll just have to get used to it.

I read this thing about SIDS and a study that was done referred to the time that the babies died as their "last sleep," which just about kills me. The first time I read that, my eyes filled with tears.

No more swaddling.

Morning Routine

Elise is falling into a fairly predictable morning routine. Mommy likes this. I read that this would start happening between 3 to 4 months of age, and for the past few weeks now, Elise and I have been developing a schedule.

Elise wakes up between 7:30 and 8:30 every morning. I sing her a wake up song (to the tune of Happy Birthday: "Good morning to you! Good morning to you! Good morning sweet baby, good morning to you!") and she laughs. Elise is very much a morning person.

Then I take her to the potty and I change her diaper, if necessary. I feed her, then we go feed the cats. We listen to the radio while we take care of the kitties. NPR. I figure it might expose her to some new words-- ones that I don't use on a daily basis.

I eat breakfast and then we pick up the cat bowls. I dress Elise and then it's time to potty again. After that, we play. She's just big enough for her bouncer as of a few days ago, so I put her in there for a bit and I also let her play on her mat. We usually read a book and rock in the rocking chair. Then she gets hungry around 10:00.

She's been taking a morning nap starting some time between 10:00 and 11:00-- usually at about 10:30. I used to hold her during her morning nap because she slept best that way, but then I realized that it wasn't a good idea anymore, after the first few months. I couldn't get anything done and I didn't want her used to being held while she slept for fear she'd become dependent on it. I started putting her down in her chair or her swing, so I could keep an eye on her while I did stuff around the house. But now that she's bigger she doesn't sleep quite so heavily and noises can wake her. So I've started putting her in her bassinet in my bedroom. She's still getting used to it. She doesn't sleep as long in the bassinet-- about half an hour compared with an hour in her chair-- but she's old enough to start learning that there is a designated sleep area for her, to be used for both bedtime and naps.

By the time she gets up from her nap, Husband is on his way home for lunch. She's always so happy to see her daddy.

Our mornings are nice. Predictable. Calm. I enjoy that time a lot.

The Bath: 4 Months Later

Elise still likes bath time. She knows how to splash and she tries to move around a lot, which presents a small challenge since she can't sit up completely on her own yet. I have to hold on to one of her shoulders at all times to make sure that she doesn't fall face first into the water.

I still give her a bath twice a week. This has always been our routine. It's usually on Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday. We do it in the morning, while Husband is at work. She doesn't really get dirty yet, so bathing her more often doesn't seem necessary. I think it will just dry out her skin. However, if we use sunscreen, I bathe her that same night. That's the only exception, really.

One weird thing about baby baths is the towels. A lot of them are really thin. I don't get this. We have some thin towels and some thick towels, and I favor the thick ones. Really, you could probably just use an adult bath towel. I can't imagine what difference it would make. Baby bath towels would definitely be something I'd cut out of my budget if I was strapped for baby cash. I wouldn't put them quite on the same level of useless crap as, say, a travel wipes warmer-- but baby bath towels are definitely not a necessity.

They are cute, though, with that little hoodie corner. That's what you're paying for, really. An extra flap of fabric to make a hoodie corner.

That's How She Rolls

Elise did more tummy to back rolls this past weekend. She can't always remember how to do them, though. If she figures it out once, she'll keep doing it. But then the next time I put her down to play, she might have forgotten how to roll. She gets so frustrated on her tummy when she can't remember how to roll over.

She'll figure it out eventually. Then she'll be rolling across the floor to get where she wants to go. Watch out, kitty cats!