Archive for the ‘General’ Category.
My friend Vickie just died. She’d often say with feeling in her voice, “It’s all about the journey!” Sometimes that was an excuse for why bad things happened, sometimes it was a joyous call to celebrate the universe we live in. She was right on both accounts.
Pancreatic cancer took her at age 51. Death is coming with increasing frequency. The first contemporary of mine to die was JTF when we were both in our 30’s. My dad has been telling me about my parents’ friends dying more often: the parents of my childhood friends, their bridge partners, neighbors. I am trying to describe the feeling I have regarding this and it is difficult. Right now it feels like a sad, dark void.
Considering presidential politics? Listen to NPR’s Marketplace!
Hint: destabilizing factors are looked upon with suspicion on the world stage.
Megan and I had a really fun Valentines Day. Emmy came over to watch Abigail for our outing. Abigail shrieked with delight when she was at the door and demanded, DEMANDED that Emily come into her bed room. It was awesome. Went out to Kiru Sushi near home for a spectacular dinner and then off to see Hand to God at the Berkeley Rep Theatre.
Best moments in the show:
Bad puppet Tyrone and Carolina’s bad puppet doing nasty sex positions while their “owners” sit a hand’s distance away, quietly and entirely embarrassed for what they have to endure.
Jason/Tyrone goes full crazy on Tim and the way we are sitting in the theatre, we have Tim’s view and Tyrone is completely intimidating!
How am I supposed to get any work done when every time I log on to Facebook to do real work (like contact a potential job reference) I am graphically shown that the world, is in fact, ending?
When Abigail was a newborn until about 12 months, it was sometimes very trying to get her to calm down from crying. I recall trying to quiet her when she was just a few months old by putting her in a Baby Bjorn, wearing her on my chest, and going for a walk. The bouncing, being held tight, the cool air, the change of scenery could help calm her. But none of that was working. I made it 1/2 a block and had to go home because it felt like I had strapped a bomb to my chest that was constantly going off. It was very distressing.
It was very helpful for me to have a list of things to try. In a frazzled state, it’s so easy to forget to try the basic calming techniques. I put this list on the refrigerator and referred to it often when trying to calm Abigail. Going down the list, and sometimes starting from the top again also gave me hope and “something to do” when nothing was working.
Getting Abigail to sleep well
The Happy Sleeper by Turgeon has a cry-it-out system that works in 2-3 nights. Essentially it’s (p129) “Go in after she’s crying for 5 minutes and give the exact same calming statement and leave (even though she’s still unhappy). Repeat until she sleeps, about 20-60 minutes. Night 2 is probably the worst.” (Once we built up the resolve to follow this technique, it worked!)
The Baby Sleep Book has lots of good little tips
The No-Cry Sleep Solution has lots of good little tips
Feeding Abigail: Tips from Rebecca
- Get her mostly calm before feeding. Rebecca bounced on the ball, gave pacifier, held her tight, all at the same time.
- hold her upright-ish and very close
- don’t tip bottle too much
- burp her often, whenever she starts to fuss. burp 3 ways: pat back with moderate force, rub up back, pat up the back
- initially have the nipple partially-mostly in her mouth. When she’s latched, put it nearly all the way in. If all the way in first, she may gag.
First Round
Questions to ask yourself:
- #1 hungry?
- #2 wet diaper?
- #3 sleepy?
- #4 hot or cold?
- #5 overstimulated?
PATIENCE!
Techniques
- nurse or offer bottle
- check/change diaper
- hold her
- hold her and bounce her in all different ways. Heel tap, sway left and right, jump all the way into the air, different jumping rhythms, twisting, not moving, knee bends, wide stance, narrow stance, jiggling, bouncing just with arms…
- set her down
- check for cold fingers and toes
- Hair dryer
- Baby Bjorn bouncey chair
- bouncing her on the yoga ball
- put her in the car seat and swing her
- put her in the car seat and bounce it on the yoga ball
- swing or rock in car seat
- pacifier
- roll her side to side, getting gas out
- hold her sideways: butt in the crook of Lee’s right arm, Lee’s right hand holding her torso, her head held with the crook of Lee’s left arm with her eyes just peeking out, maybe she is sucking Lee’s bicep
- Abigail sucking on the crook of Lee’s elbow, while he holds her
- a short walk up and down the walkway
- go for a walk around the block in the baby bjorn/baby k’tan
- mechanical swing
- Baby gym
- wrap in blanket, snuggle
- pat or rub back
- talk to her in upbeat, positive tones
- sing a song with long, low tones
- hum or shhhh
- play music
- white noise app on phone
- distract with toy
- show her a mirror and her reflection
- play with the dog
- put my face really close to hers, act crazy and tickle her
- breastfeed
- give her something out of the ordinary (different from all her toys) to play with like an empty tissue box, half full water bottle, clear plastic tops from her bottle or sippy cup, anything new and interesting that makes noise.
- crinkle a bag, paper, plastic, shopping, for ziplock…
- stand her in the sink and let the water faucet just barely drip on her hands
- listen to the clothes dryer together
- show her large, high contrast things like paper silhouettes
- Sing a little song with hand movements
- change of person
- something to chew on
- something to eat
- Take her clothes off
- dance with her to a modern song, IE Sara Lugo – The One
- 5 S’s from Happiest Baby DVD
- Swaddle (#1)
- Side or stomach position (#2)
- Shush (#3)
- Swing (#4)
- Suck (#5)
Experimental (they don’t necessarily work yet)
- turn the lights off and on / cover her eyes for a moment
- blowing in her face on her hairline or by the side of her head (from Carla B.)
- Go in the shower with her (from Carla B.)
From Carla: one of our most effective tips was to put a heating blanket in the bassinet while I nursed the babies for the last time before going to sleep, so the transfer to the bassinet wasn’t a cold shock after being next to another warm body.
Can anyone recommend a modern, inexpensive home security system that doesn’t suck?
I’ve reviewed so many and am tired of wading through the hype only to discover a string of terrible reviews. Shouldn’t this be as simple as hooking an Amazon Alexa up to an IR camera and adding some code to make something awesome?
Codornices Creek / Quail Creek runs just behind our house. You saw Abigail playing on its banks a little while back. The beginning of the creek is way up the hill at a the beautiful Codornices Park. The creek also feeds through the Berkeley Rose Garden which is a treasure. So here is a bit more about the creek. I saw this sign on the Ohlone Greenway:
Our Christmas tree, Fiona is on her way back to Mount Shasta to spend the summer with the other Christmas trees. In the fall, they will bring her back to spend a month or so in our home (yes, really). Patrick the owner says she might grow a foot over the summer. In the photo, that’s Patrick, the owner of http://www.forevergreenchristmastree.com/ on the left.
We really enjoyed fostering our tree for the season and will definitely do it again next year.
I just left my eye doctor, getting my monthly treatment. I asked and he confirmed that if I had gotten this disorder just 15 years ago, the prognosis would have been fair to poor. If I was rather lucky, I’d keep my eyesight at the level it was when I walked in to the doctor’s office (which was like 20/100). It is now very treatable and I get to keep vision in both eyes. Hurray science!!
