Saturday, December 30, 2006

Week 26 (Six Months!) – Cause and Effect

I know that every parent thinks their child is a genius or at the very least above average, but like all those children on Lake Wobegon, mine really is. For a few weeks now Elise has been dropping things from her high chair, or from the couch or from wherever. Now, you may be thinking that her grip is simply too weak or that she is destine to be clumsy. However, if you’ve met her, or have read our blog about the claw, trust me the grip is fine. (and I have the clumps of hair missing to prove it.) I think Ellie is experimenting with gravity. She has this triumphant look of, ‘cool, things fall… hey parents, did you know that?’

Okay, maybe she just likes to make noise, but what really is impressive is that she has learned that when she drops something it goes on the floor. She has learned that if I drop something out of my high chair on the left side, I will lean over and look for it on the left side and vice versa. This is the complicated concept of cause and effect.

As I write this, I realize that this may be another one of those moments where Meredith and I are far more impressed with something then most people would be. I think all parents do this sort of thing though, especially with the first baby. We read into everything. I can’t truly explain the roller-coaster ride that is reading the mayo clinic’s guide to the first year and comparing Ellie’s skills to what a six month old should be doing. For example, it says that by this time your child should be sitting up on their own for five minutes or more. No problem, she’s been doing the sitting thing for weeks now. My baby is so advanced. But it also says that a baby should be eating solid foods pretty regularly. Well, how come getting Ellie to eat cereal has been such a challenge? Is there something wrong with her? With us? Are we forcing it on her? Will she develop an eating disorder?

Honestly, Meredith is the worrier, but I have found that I am so much more protective and worried than I ever thought I would be. It’s so frustrating. The logic is that Ellie will do things in her own time and the books offer a rough guideline, but there is this lingering panic that everything you are doing is stunting your child’s development. So then are we overcompensating? Okay, see, I could go on like this forever. Basically, the gist of it is, you read what you can, you create the environment for Ellie to figure things out and Mother Nature will take care of the rest. Above Average, Average, Genius, it doesn’t really matter. I can’t believe I’ve actually turned into one of those types of parents. But whatever your baby can do, mine can do better. ;-)

Friday, December 29, 2006

Bonus Family Picture Post - Merry Christmas!

Gift from Oma and Opa













Grandpa and Ellie Christmas Eve












Grandmom and Ellie Christmas Eve














Molloy Family

















Grandmom, Grandpa and (Great) Grandma Stauffer












Nanny (Ellie's Great Grandmother Wolfe)











Ellie's second cousins Cory, Emma, and Kamryn, with my first cousins Robin and Sarah and (Great) Grandma Meredith












The Wolfe Family













Grandmom and Pop (Ellie's Great Grandmother and Grandfather Meredith)












"Aunt" Lauren (Ellie's first cousin once removed)

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Week 25 – Rockwell’s Got Nuttin’ on Us

I have Christmas Fever. This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but to those of you who know me well, you know that I had become a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to this nation’s most overdone holiday. It’s not that I don’t like the idea of Christmas – I actually love the whole spirit of giving aspect. But I have been a strong believer in celebrating Christmas ON CHRISTMAS. That means: no buying gifts in July; no listening to Christmas songs except on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day; no obnoxious decorations put up the day after Thanksgiving. Marty and I have never had a Christmas tree before (we always celebrate the day somewhere else!) and we don’t get each other gifts (we usually just paid for our trip back east).

Actually, for me, Christmas had become synonymous with stress and exhaustion. For the past several years it meant flying back east for an intensely jam-packed schedule with family functions and visits with friends, rushing from one thing to the next, spending the majority of our “holiday” on the beltway and returning home completely exhausted and ready for a vacation.

Having a child, however, has breathed new life into my Christmas Spirit. Like so many things in my life, I now see things in an entirely new light. Ellie’s first Christmas was very exciting for me, even though she wasn’t aware that it was happening. We bought a tree, bought and hung stockings (over the fireplace even! how trite!), put up wreaths and other decorations (Christmas threw up on our house!) and Marty and I even decided to exchange gifts this year. I even caught myself listening to the All-Christmas-Music-All-The-Time radio station on numerous occasions that were not Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. If you’d told me this time last year that I would be listening to Christmas music I would have laughed until I cried. Why the change of heart? Well…I don’t know exactly.

Maybe it’s because it was the first of many Christmas’s that we will spend as The Molloy Family. While Marty and I have been married for 5 years, we weren’t really a family until now. At least, no one really considers you a “family” until you have kids – you’re just a couple. As a couple, you split time between your parents’ houses carrying out each others families traditions insisting that the way that each of you did things with your family is the “right” way to celebrate Christmas. So, this year we started a new tradition: The Molloy Family Christmas. We will spend Christmas morning at our house opening presents and eating Pumpkin bread and drinking coffee (well Ellie can’t drink coffee until she’s at least 4)…or whatever it is that we will do that will become our family’s way of doing things. We will do this so that one day Ellie will say to her husband “but in MY family we always…” and argue that her family’s way is the “right” way.

Our first Christmas with Ellie was as wonderful – she licked her presents (we wrapped up two toys that we already had) and was in great spirits all weekend, especially considering that we threw off her normal bedtime routine and put her in loud situations with tons of people for three days straight. We got to spend lots of time with each of our families, upholding many Wolfe/Molloy-Stauffer traditions, and we also got to have Christmas morning together as a family unit, starting our own tradition. It was the best of both worlds. It wasn’t stressful, it wasn’t rushed. In fact, I am already looking forward to doing it all again next year. What a difference a year can make.

There was one little thing that happened, that I need to document as well. At my parents house, Ellie woke around 4:00 AM crying in the next room over. Marty got up and went to her right away, fearing that since she was in a new place and not in her own crib, she might be a little confused or afraid. Well, by the time Marty picked her up and brought her into our room, she had fallen right back to sleep. So Marty, basically a lazy man ;-), decided that the effort was too great to get her back in the other room - so he laid down and we snuggled together as a family for a few hours. It was one of the nicest Christmas memories we will ever have to share.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Week 24 - Ten Good Minutes

Many people say that when they have children, their children teach them as much about the world around them as they teach the children. This is no less true for me. I see the world in such a different light since Elise was born. Something, a gift from Ellie really, that has altered every facet of my life is more ethereal and less concrete then a specific lesson learned. It revolves around time & philosophy.

Specifically, it is a new way of life I call, ten good minutes. It stems from the put-down method we use for getting Ellie to sleep at night. Invariably, Ellie falls asleep with Meredith feeding her at night, but when placed in her crib she wakes and cries. I do not need to re-chronicle our sleep issues. But what happens next has literally changed my life. After a few minutes of crying, I will enter her room and say ‘okay, sweetie, ten good minutes.’ I proceed to pick her up and rock her gently to sleep.

The timeline is as follows: in the first three minutes she calms down, the next two she falls back to sleep, the next three we spend enjoying the sleep and falling deeper into it and lastly, with the last two I prepare her body to be placed in the crib and actually complete the placement. This works every time… almost. See, sometimes, I break the rules and then it doesn’t work.

The rules are very specific. There can be no cheating, it must be at least ten minutes, longer is okay, but never shorter. It starts from the moment you see the time on the clock. If you don’t look at the time for a few moments when you get in the room, you cannot guess. You must remain focused on the task at hand. Allowing the mind to wander onto unrelated topics will distract you and you will transfer this to the job at hand. In this case, she will stay awake longer, or wake sooner in the night, etc.

As with any philosophy, there can be variations that are acceptable, like the way I hold Elise, but if I break one of the cardinal rules, like trying to put her down before the ten minutes have been reached, then it doesn’t work and the results can be ear-splittingly tragic.

From a broader point of view, we are inundated with noise from every place in our lives. Often, I will seek out media, be it music, or podcasts, or the television that basically keep me from myself and my thoughts. It’s much easier to hear a news story than to examine ones situation at that moment. But in those ten good minutes, I routinely spend with Ellie, I’m in a dark room with nothing to distract me. My thoughts are focused on her, our lives, the future, etc. Feeling her breathe deeper as she falls asleep on my chest cause me to focus on this fleeting and precious moment.

For several weeks now, I’ve been applying this to other areas of my life with varying degrees of success. Meredith doesn’t call me ‘ADD-boy’ for nothing. I have the attention span of a dog that is not looking at food. I am still learning this philosophy, but, it does work when applied correctly. Try it!

If a situation has you riled up:
Take three minutes just to calm down (Ellie like to go from crying to a soft whimper here)
Take the next two minutes to find your center and your rationality (Ellie falls asleep here)
Take the next three minutes to delve deeper into the issue (Ellie goes into a deep sleep here)
Take the last two minutes to prepare yourself to reengage the world (Ellie is dreaming here) and take the first step forward again.

If I package this right, I think I might have the makings of a self-help program here. Ooh, and don’t you think Guru Elise Molloy has a nice ring to it?

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Week 23 - Whoop, There It Is!

From the time we are infants, we are given a bazillion vaccinations to prevent us from contracting all sorts of diseases that you don’t hear of anyone ever actually getting in this country anymore. I am not suggesting that we should not get vaccinated to potentially lethal illnesses, but no one actually gets these diseases, right? Well, turns out they actually do! A little boy named Michael in the infant section of Ellie’s daycare has come down with pertussis, aka whooping cough.



Whooping cough is a bacterial infection that inflames the lungs and airways and brings on a persistent, violent cough. A baby with whooping cough will typically cough for 20 or 30 seconds nonstop and then struggle to breathe before the next coughing spell starts. During coughing episodes, baby's lips and nails may turn bluish from lack of oxygen. As I have mentioned before, I am a Worrier. (Marty would say, "THE worrier) There is seriously nothing worse for a Worrier than for her child to potentially have a disease that causes her to turn blue from lack of oxygen. Is it just me or does this whole thing sound completely terrifying? Elise’s pediatrician, while concerned, didn’t seem to think Elise’s death was imminent so I have relaxed a little (I stress little). Apparently it is not completely bizarre that someone at daycare got whooping cough. I did some research and it turns out that this disease is making a comeback and there are thousands and thousands of reported cases all over the country. Who knew?

Ellie has had one vaccination to this disease, but it is a series of 4 shots, given over the course of a year, so she is not vaccinated to it yet. Because it is an extremely contagious disease and Ellie has been exposed to it, her pediatrician put her on antibiotics. Hopefully these antibiotics will either prevent her from getting it, or (if she already has it) will reduce its severity. There is nothing else that we can really do at this point. So for now, we are just giving her the antibiotic and having a minor panic attack every time she sneezes or coughs.

In other medical news, Ellie went in for her 4-month check up this week (we are a month behind). She weighed in at 13lbs 11oz, so she’s just barely shy of doubling her birth weight. She is still a skinny-minnie – only in the 20th percentile for weight for her age. She is not continuing the path to becoming a giant either – this month she dropped from 68th percentile in height to 48th percentile. Guess we do not have a Lisa Leslie (or Diana Taurasi - Go Mercury!) on our hands after all. Looks like she’s destined to be average height like her parents. The pediatrician said that she was surprised that Ellie’s hair is still red – maybe it will stay that way! It doesn’t look like her eye color (“blueberry” blue) will change now either.

So, cross your fingers for us that Elise does not contract whooping cough or have any body parts that ever turn blue other than her eyes. Luckily, so far she seems happy and healthy and thinks her antibiotic is a fun tasty treat. Ah, to be young and worry-free!

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Week 22 - The Claw

Sometimes I run around the house with Elise in my arms chasing after Meredith. Now, for those of you that know me well, you should see nothing odd in this behavior and for many of you who have watched me chase sheep at Mt. Vernon or talk in the silliest of voices at the oddest of times, you will feel pity for Meredith for she now has two children to contend with. But wait! It gets better. Allow me to explain the latest in Ellie's development.

Several weeks ago Ellie started reaching out for things and grabbing them. Eventually, she started bringing them to her mouth and we encouraged this, as it was a big step for her to recognize something and go for it. It should be noted that Ellie is freakishly strong. However, we never imagined that this cute development coupled with her kung-fu grip would turn into... The Claw! The tough part about it all is that the claw is unpredictable. When I'm holding her and drinking my coffee, the claw strikes and spills coffee. (Fortunately, time no longer permits me to have hot coffee anymore because I'm inevitably distracted by Ellie.) When we are
trying to feed her, the claw will ascend from below and grab the spoon. When I have Ellie riding high on my shoulders, the claw strikes and leaves with a clump of my hair. (I used to think that fathers went bald due to genetics or stress or they ripped their own hair out, but now I know... they had daughters... and their daughters had the claw!) Try putting clothes on our angel... she waits until you have the first arm through, then it is an hour later, you are exhausted but victorious... but you know the claw will return. Opening mail around the claw, forget it!
Back to our original scene, I will chase Meredith through the house encouraging the claw to strike and of course, when it could actually be used for good and tormenting those we love, it remains dormant. I always hoped that my child and I could gang up on Meredith and outnumber her. What a fool I was to think that I was not the outnumbered one by the females in the house. It’s a conspiracy.

Pretty soon, as Ellie outgrows things, we will spread them out on the floor and invite our friends over who have young children. I will hold Ellie in my arms and people will pay us to move throughout the toys and clothes and when they are ready, we will bend down and see if the claw was able to win them a prize. ;-) Can you say college fund?