GIANT!!!!

If Maxine continues to grow at her current rate, by the time she is 20 years old she will weigh 408 lbs and be 21 feet 9 inches tall.

Bundh on the Bung

Maxine is constipated. No other way to put it. The girl has not poo'd for 9 days now. Yes, I have called her doctor. This is actually the second long stretch of what we like to call "The Bundh on the Bung" (Bundh means "strike" in Nepali). The first time lasted 8 days. I called the doctor and spoke with his nurse. She told me that it is normal for some breastfed babies to go for long periods without a bowel movement. She said I should go home and put a tiny thermometer in her butt and see if I felt any solid poo... WHAT??? Um, YOU put the tiny thermometer in a 5 month old baby's butt, lady! Like, I want to deal with that - yeah, I have done that to dogs when I was at the humane society but I will not do this to my daughter. Imagine the trauma! Talk about crying for 45 minutes. So, the nurse offered me an alternative. I can mix Dark Karo Syrup in water and that should help. So, I went home and figured I would discuss our option (notice it is not plural). That night she poo'd her first post-solid food poo. Whew! It stank! I didn't realize that consistency, color, and SMELL change with the introduction of solid foods. It smells so bad that I would consider breastfeeding until she is potty trained just to avoid having to touch it again... too late, though. She is permanently altered. Anyway, so, now the Bundh on the Bung has lasted 9 days and we are going to try the Dark Karo Syrup and I am going to try eating more fiber. I'll keep you posted...



In other news... Drum roll... Maxine has now added mashed bananas, mashed peas, mashed pears and rice cereal to her diet! Ben and I were so excited to introduce solids and were convinced that all of her tracking our forks from plate to mouth and grabbing at our food were signs that she was ready for the leap into new flavors and solid poo! We got her all dressed up in a cutie-patootie outfit, mashed some bananas (thanks for the masher Gurungs!), and put her in her new high chair. We got out the camera because, of course, this is what she has been waiting for and it will be ground shaking. I mean, she will be so happy! Above is the photo of her being fed for the first time (other than breastmilk)... one word can describe this event: "anticlimatic". She actually cringed and then gave us a look that VERY OBVIOUSLY said, "What is that and why the HELL did you give that to me?" We thought that maybe she just doesn't like bananas... but we have since learned that she pretty much reacts that way to everything we have given her. Pears had the most positive-like response. Luckily, no tears over any of the foods. Just good old-fashioned rejection. She just sort of avoids the spoon and looks at us like, "You totally don't understand. I want mom's beer. Not this crap." - she does like to smell my beer and always reaches for the bottle and tries to put her mouth on the top... scary and we can all worry now about what Ben and I have in store for ourselves.



Finally, we have started "sleep training". The idea of this is to teach her how to fall asleep unassisted (i.e. not on the boob). I am hesitant to say we are using the Ferber method even though many have told us we are. I prefer to call it "The Broadman Method" after my pediatrician friend that told me about it. She is Maxine's good friend "Nicola's" mom. So, we have started a "routine". Nica's mom told me that the first two nights the average baby will cry for 45 minutes, 3rd night 20 minutes and then they sleep. So, I feed Maxine then when she is relaxed but not asleep we put her in her sleep sack and read her a book. Then we put her in her bed and say sweet things to her (important to try and say the same things to her so she associates them with time for sleep) and then leave. Then, if she cries, we let her cry for 5 minutes and then can go in and say sweet things to her - never pick her up. So, the first two nights she cried for exactly 45 minutes. Really... exactly 45 minutes. Then the 3rd night 10 minutes. Now she may cry for less than 5 minutes or not at all. It is hard but I think that, in the long run, it will be helpful because she will know how to sleep on her own.

Breastfeeding, Pumping, Diapers, Childcare and Working: How it is Going

Well, since I have failed at making a "baby book" for Maxine I have decided that this is it. Perhaps I will print it out and put it in a binder for her or something like that. This is definitely a more "resource-efficient" way to record Maxine (and share with others!).

I think it is important to provide an update on how breastfeeding, pumping, diapers, childcare and working are going.

Breastfeeding:
The only things that Maxine has purposely consumed are breastmilk, baby tylenol and vitamins - there has been the occasional bath water and pet hair, too. I have worked hard to keep this going for this long. As you know, I went back to work when she was 6 weeks old and have had to pump in order to satisfy her appetite. My sister is a lactation consultant and has explained to me that nothing is as efficient as a baby in getting breastmilk out of a breast. There are two hormones that are released that cause the milk to let down and only one can be triggered easily without the baby. So, what this means is I can't get as much out in one sitting of pumping as Maxine would in one sitting of breastfeeding. So, after many trials and errors and stresses I have figured out the schedule that produces enough milk for Maxine. Following is my schedule:

5:15 am wake up, pump and then go work out (I am already awake)
6:45 am Get home, shower, eat breakfast, hang out with Maxine and breastfeed
8:15 or 8:30 am leave for work
10:30 am pump
12:45 pm pump
3:30 pm pump
4:45 pm go home and hang out with Maxine, eat dinner and breastfeed
7;45 pm/8:00 pm Maxine goes to sleep
9:00 pm get ready for bed, pump and go to sleep
11:00 pm - 4:00 am Maxine wakes up (usually only once) to breastfeed for anywhere between 11 and 45 minutes

Phew! It is a regimen that, if I fail to follow, we run the risk of low supplies! The doctor says that if I can make it to 6 months that is perfect and anything after that is great. I have read that children breastfed between 7 mos and a year (or longer) tend to have higher IQs (my friends Kelly and Amanda must just blow the researchers because they are brilliant and were formula-fed. Go figure?) Well, right now breastmilk is cheaper and I feel like I am doing a good thing. I am shooting for a year. We will start introducing solids at 6 months so that may offer some relief (except the rice cereal needs to be mixed with breastmilk or formula - ack!!!!)
Also, we are feeding Maxine the pumped milk with a Born Free bottle which is Bisphenol-A free. We also bought medical-grade plastic, bisphenol-a free freezer trays to freeze the milk in 1 oz sticks. I wear this little zip up tube top with holes where my boobs are so I can pump hands free. It really streamlines the process!


Diapers:
Ben and I chose to use cloth diapers. We are using fuzzi bunz and wash them at home. I researched whether cloth diapers would be more resource efficient than "biodegradable" diapers. The arguments are strong for both sides and we ultimately decided on the cloth diapers. We then researched whether to use a service or wash our own and decided the carbon footprint would be less with washing on our own. My mother-in-law has started an online magazine called "Connections for Women" and asked me to write an article on cloth vs. disposable diapers. Here is the link to the article if you are interested in knowing more about our decision and facts supporting it: http://www.connectionsforwomen.com/article_details.php?article_id=200&cat=5

Childcare:
Ben and I are very lucky to have his mom and my parents living in the same town. My mom has been coming twice a week to hang out with Maxine for 5 hours each day so Ben can work. His mom watches Maxine at least once a week. Otherwise, Ben is Mr. Mom. So far, it seems to be going very well. He gets a lot of work done when one of the grandmas are helping and even sometimes when he is alone with Maxine - of course, there are days that Maxine doesn't want him to work. Ben seems to be loving this, too.

Working
Well, I think that 6 weeks is too early to go back to work. I think it was hard on all three of us. If I were to do it over again I would for sure wait until she was 2 months or, even better, 3 months. 3 months would have been the ideal time to return to work. But, that didn't happen and I am not regretting because I feel like Maxine and I have a strong bond regardless. She knows who I am and we spend mornings, nights and weekends together. We laugh and play and eat together. I also think that I am setting a strong example for her as a working mother. I know she doesn't know right now but in the future she will see her mother working and being a leader. I think the Ben and I offer a great balance for her. I hope she will start dabbling in art with her dad while he works. What a great experience to see an office-working parent and an artist-parent. I can't wait to see how she develops into her own individual with all of these influences.

Welcome to the World Henry Clarence Smith!

Our wonderful friends, Martha and Ryan, gave birth to a healthy boy on January 31st in Bangkok, Thailand! Congratulations! Maxine can't wait to share her toys with Henry. We love the three of you!

Uncle Tyler and Auntie Amanda Come to Visit

Well, Maxine was ecstatic and very, very lucky that her Auntie Amanda and Uncle Tyler came to visit her this past weekend. Tyler and Amanda were with us in Indonesia when we discovered we were pregnant with Maxine. Now they are living in Washington State and decided to take a trip to meet the former "bun in the oven". We went on a short walk/hike ("hike is a bit of a stretch), ate Mexican food, went to yoga or running, played bocce, made homemade pizzas and visited an old ghost town. It was a REALLY wonderful visit and so great to see good friends. Did I mention we ate cheetos??? yum. Tyler and Amanda, thank you so much for coming. We miss you already!

97th Percentile: Maxine Ain't No Jelly bean

Yes, Yes, Yes... Today I took Maxine to the doctor for her 4 month appointment. Looking back, my conversation in the waiting room foreshadowed her appointment. I, like any parent does, struck up a conversation with the Mother next to me. I asked her all of the usual questions a mother of a younger child does, "How old is your child? When did she start walking? Rolling? How do you keep her from getting into things?" You know. The other mother asked, "How old is your daughter? 9 months?" When I told her she was 4 months the mother said, "Geez!! She is BIG." My experience with children is very limited so I wouldn't know how big Maxine should be... especially because my other mom friends all have big kids, too. So, I smiled proudly (I don't know why I am proud I have a big kid... I just am) and went into Maxine's appointment. We quickly discovered that she is 26.25" and weighs 15 lbs and 11 oz. She is in the 97th percentile for her height and somewhere in the 90s for her weight... the 97th percentile sort of overshadowed the weight's pecentile. Oh, and she is, like, 99.9 percentile for cute.

For Martin Luther King Day weekend we all went to Santa Fe. Maxine's dad attended a two day discussion in Don Quixote and Maxine and I were fancy-pants tourists. We wandered throughout downtown and into the art galleries. Maxine was a super star, flashing her smile at everyone. People stopped all of the time to pinch her cheek and tell me how beautiful she is and how special they feel because she is smiling at them (I didn't mention the person ahead of them on the sidewalk that she made feel special, too). We ate amazing food - I swear Mew Mexican food is incredible. Ben went to college at St John's College, where the seminar was held, so we went to his favorite restaurant Horsemen's Haven. This is a cafe located next to a gas station and has the best, hottest green chili in Sant Fe.



I also feel that it is important, at 4 months, for me to provide a State of Maxine entry. Well, she is incredibly social and smiles at everyone. There are several Maxine smiles - the social one that all strangers are privileged to. There is the smile when she is happy to see someone close to her where she looks surprised and then smiles with her eyes, nose crinkles up and a big pen mouthed grin - the smile is so hard that it causes her to jam her face into whomever is holding her or her hands. It is almost a bashful reaction. She has a laughing smile where she kicks, punches and smiles with really hard and gasps - this is the smile that reminds me of her namesake, my Grandma Maxine. Unless you are a stranger, you have got to work for one of her smiles. Not that she isn't nice or is upset... she just needs a good reason to smile and you had better be funny or friendly... I sometimes work up a sweat just trying to get a smile - if you aren't funny, she just stares at your blankly. Having said that, I am certain she is a very nice, giving and thoughtful baby (okay, roll your eyes now) because she will be crying and so upset but if someone she loves comes into the room she will smile. Despite her misery she will smile and still have tears rolling down her face and then, after she has made you feel like a super star, she will return to her misery.

Maxine is also very observant. For instance, when I am breastfeeding her she will sometimes pull away and stare at me. She will look at my hair line, then my eyes, then my nose and mouth. She watches how I smile and what I say... without smiling or anything... just staring. She also watches us eat. This is pretty funny because she will look at the food and then follow it from the plate into our mouths - almost like she is starving and we are torturing her. Apparently, this is normal and I shouldn't give her my burrito.

Also, she is practicing all of these noises. She makes these gutteral moans... or screeches and gasps and sort of moans. All of which she thinks are totally normal and keep me smiling whenever I am around her... she sounds crazy, constipated, maniacal and gosh darn cute!

I am sure I have more on the State of Maxine but I have to go because her father just gave her a plastic grocery bag to play with (And I leave her with him all day!?). The photo below is Maxine and her parents standing next to her dad's piece of art, 1 of only 5 pieces out of 30 that sold at a silent auction fundraiser for an artist cooperative downtown. Yay Dad!!!

STOP World: Maxine rolls...

Looking back, everything was unusual that day. The air was cooler than your average Arizona morning in January. Maxine awoke for her normal 6:45 am feeding but was alert and ready for the day rather than her usual need to sleep in. I, too, was alert and ready for the day and, instead of waking Ben so I could sleep more, I shut our door and decided to play with Maxine as the sun rose. She was perky and enjoying her play gymn so I chanced the usually dreaded tummy-time. She loved it. She was pushing up higher than I had seen her, laughing and yelling and rubbing her legs in a crawling motion. And then, I might have missed it if I had blinked she pushed up with her left arm and her left leg and WHOOOOSH! She was on her back. Yes, this past Saturday January 12, 2008 Maxine Alexandra rolled from her belly to her back. I quickly woke up Ben and told him and as he was getting up I went back to the play gymn and put her on her belly and BAM! Again! Ben ran in to see as I put her on her belly again and SHE DID NOT DO IT AGAIN. Yeah, luckily, Sunday morning she performed for Ben. Unfortunately for anyone else Maxine refuses... so, stay tuned for the day she chooses to share her new talent.