The Irrational Parent

There seems something fitting about the fact that "Momma Said Knock You Out" just came on the ipod as I started to write this blog. See, the thing is, I'm the second parent. In Ellie's world there are two kinds of people: 1. People who are Mommy and 2. People who are not Mommy. I fall in the second category and most of the time I'm okay with that. One of my fatherhood mentors, William Sparks once said to me, 'your job is to keep mom happy. Mom keeps baby happy and alive and baby is in charge. 'In fact,' he continued, 'think of it as Ellie is driving the car, Mom is in the backseat and you're in the trunk.' Truer words were never spoken. I am prepared to play my part as Marty, guy in the trunk (aka not Mommy). Sure I joke about being second fiddle, but Ellie and I get enough quality time together that we've got our inside jokes and special playtime, so it's cool. That is until I become unglued and completely irrational.

The other night as we progressed through our bedtime routine everything was fine. Besides that fact that I accidentally hit Ellie in the head with the bathroom door, everything was fine. We even laughed and joked in the bathtub a few minutes later. Book time was good, saying goodnight to all the animals in her room went smoothly, then came kiss goodnight. I got nothing, nada, bubkis. Maybe a little peck, but then she pushing away from me and to get over to mommy for goodnight kisses and man, I think she was trying to send a message because it was Kissfest 2007 with Mommy. She just kept planting big, wet enthusiastic kisses all over Mommy's face again and again and again. I gotta say, I was hurt. My daughter wanted nothing to do with me. That's it, it's over, I had my moment in time with her. It'll be discipline issues and awkward conversations where we don't ever actually say anything to each other. I was crushed.

Meredith felt a little bad too because she had been a willing participant in Kissfest 2007 and did nothing to temper it. She knew I was hurt, but hey, she's on top - everything is great.

But tonight... ah, tonight. I was slobbered on. I got kisses on my cheek, I got kisses on my nose, I got kisses when People who are Mommy were holding Ellie trying to get their own goodnight kisses. It was awesome. I'm back, I'm on top. We're going to be fine, she's Daddy's Little Girl forever and I can picture walks on the beach next weekend, and playing the sand and eating ice cream together and making the best memories ever.

I wonder if parenthood will continue to turn me into a nutjob or if at some point I will stop being an irrational parent and be the calm cool collected parent my parents were...(I'm in such deep trouble.)

Milkin' It

Way back in August of 2006 when we determined that Elise had a dairy and soy allergy, my doctor helpfully pointed out that 95% of babies with an intolerance to the milk protein outgrow it by age one. At the time, it seemed like a lifetime for both of us to banish milk and soy from our diets. But time has flown by and we have made it through the year, with only one or two accidental milk intake incidents, all of which resulted in Ellie getting a head to toe rash, and suffering from major gastro-intestinal issues. Needless to say, I was not feeling very confident that Ellie would be one of those 95%.

Since her first birthday, I have been slowly cutting back the amount of times she nurses (down to once in the morning and once at night - no more pumping! anyone who has ever pumped for any length of time knows that this is monumental!) and completely eliminated bottles (only sippy cups now). But she has low iron and doesn't like meat so I have been fairly worried about Ellie's diet, especially when it comes to iron, fat and protein, and thus have been reluctant to wean her completely. She is drinking rice milk during the day from her sippy cup, but while it is fortified with vitamins and calcium, it does not have the fat her little brain needs for healthy development. On top of that, at 18 pounds, she is only in the 18th percentile for weight. My doctor has said that we shouldn't be concerned about this, but cutting out our little vegan's main source of fat and nutrients (breast milk) seems like it wouldn't do her weight any favors.

Now I realize that there are children that have a consistent diet of McDonalds and soda and never even have a sip of milk and they are probably fine. But I obviously want Ellie to be as healthy as possible and I want what is best for her in every way. All that being said, last week we decided that now is as good a time as any to do a "dairy challenge" to see what her reaction would be now that she is 12 months old. Last Thursday on a whim, I bought a container of regular yogurt and fed it to her. Just like that! She liked the yogurt and for the rest of the day and through the night there was no issue at all!

But just when we thought she was completely in the clear, she began to develop a rash and got some fairly bad eczema on one of her arms the next morning. Still, this was a very mild reaction comparatively and she didn't really have any gastro-intestinal problems which were the worst part of the reaction before. So we decided to go all out and buy some whole milk! Unfortunately the next day she developed a nasty chest cold so we've decided to hold off until she is congestion free. We are a little worried that the "cold" might be part of the allergic reaction, but there is really no way to tell unless we try it again.

Still, we remain hopeful that the end is in sight! If she can drink whole milk with mild or no issues, then I will wean her completely and my pizza-free days will officially be over. Cross your fingers.

More Beach Pics!

Constant Change

It still amazes me, even after of more than a year of experiencing it, how much your child can change in a matter of days (even hours!). Last week, Elise had one tooth. This week she has three! Last week she was completely bald on the top of her head. This week she actually has some strands of hair starting to grow! She is slowly but surely starting to look less like a baby and more like a toddler every day.

It's not just the physical aspects either. Everyday, Elise is learning and doing new things that totally blow my mind. She is still not saying very much -mama, dada, hi, hello, bye and nana(for banana) - but the range of things that she understands is incredible. When I say, let's read a book, she goes and gets one and brings it to me. If I say let's read the fish book, she goes and gets the book with a fish on it. When I say where's mommy's nose, she grabs my nose. When I say give mommy a kiss, she kisses me (this is by far the cutest thing of all time and she will give a slobbery open mouth kiss - she can't quite pucker yet - to just about anything when directed to do so). So basically, she is really good at following directions (when it is something she wants to do. She understands "no" but doesn't like to listen to that direction)

She is starting to get other concepts as well. Last week, her Opa laid down on her Dora couch and started fake snoring, pretending to be asleep. Seeing this, Ellie went and got her Elephant that she sleeps everyday for naps and bedtime, and took it over to him for him to have while he was sleeping! When we tell her we're going to go outside, she goes and gets her shoes and tries to put them on (unsuccessfully) or hands them to one of us. If we just put her shoes on without saying we're going anywhere, she runs over to the door after her shoes are on, knowing that's what's happening next.

She is not good at going down stairs yet. She wants to walk down stairs holding a railing or a hand, but she is still a little too small for that. She flat out refuses to crawl down backwards, something we've been trying to teach her for five months. But when she gets to an edge (a step or sandbox edge or something) if we say "stop" she will stop and wait for one of us to help her down. This is a huge improvement over her previous "have no fear" tumbling.

She has also become our little helper. She loves picking up the magnolia flower buds from the yard and throwing them in the trashcan (little does she know she will hate this chore, that will inevitably be hers, in a few years). She has also gotten very good at throwing clothes into the dryer when I hand them to her one at a time. This is not surprising though because she absolutely loves throwing things. She has a shockingly good arm on her as well!

Every single day she does new things that make us realize that she is aware of what's going on and that while she still can't say much, she has her own way of communicating with us. It makes everyday exciting for us, as her parents, because we wake up every morning wondering what new thing she'll do today.

Beach Bum

Ellie's first birthday came and went last Saturday (June 30) without a lot of Hurrah (I had to work, so there was a lot of quality, but low-key, Daddy-Ellie time) but we did get to have a little celebration later in the week while at the beach with Marty's family. We sang Happy Birthday to her with a candle in a banana (because I kept forgetting to make a dairy-free dessert for the occasion). She seemed a little confused, but was excited, as always, to eat banana. This was Ellie's first real vacation and considering all the people, the different atmosphere, strange bed, sharing a room with Mom and Dad, different schedule and teething, the week went very well and Ellie was a real trooper.

We headed to Ocean City, MD on Sunday night around Ellie's bedtime assuming that she would sleep in the car all the way and then we could just plop her into bed when we arrived. She did sleep on the way, but she woke up about 20 minutes away from our destination (I think she woke up when we started hitting traffic lights) and cried and cried. When we got there, she got a quick glimpse of Gram, Grandpa, Uncle Scott, Aunt Rachel and cousin Nathan and became instantly awake and excited. I tried to put her down, but she was running around playing peek a boo and acting about as far from tired as you could get, so I took her back upstairs to say hi to the family and she ran around like a maniac for about an hour. At 11pm she was still showing no signs of being tired, but we gave it a shot anyway and she was asleep in minutes.

As this was the first time Elise ever went to bed so late, we got our first lesson that going to bed late does not translate to sleeping in (as we'd hoped). In fact, she was up at 4:45am (an hour and 15 minutes earlier than usual) letting us know that her idea of vacation is apparently very different from ours. Luckily, things settled down as the week progressed and for the most part she went down easily and got up at a reasonable hour every day. There was one glaring exception, however, on Thursday night. That night, there were fireworks just about a mile away from our condo and it was very, very loud. The sky lit up, the booms were huge and some you could even feel in your chest. She slept through it without so much as a stir. Then later that night, Marty came into the bedroom around 1:30am and the door squeaked a little and of course she woke right up and refused to go back to sleep. It was a very, very long night.
She has what appears to be her second tooth making its way through her bottom gum, and I had a sandwich that may have had a slice of cheese on it...we don't really know the reason for the horrible night (and cranky Friday morning) but by Friday afternoon she seemed to be in better spirits and all was well again.

Her second pool adventure was much improved over the last (we took her a few weeks ago and she hated it, crying most of the time). She wasn't exactly jumping with joy, but she wasn't crying either so I'd say that's progress. By the end of the week, she even gestured like she wanted to get in the pool, which I'd say is a sign that she liked it even though we never did get a smile out of her while she was "swimming".

The beach was a big hit though. The ocean scared her a little, but she loved playing in the sand (giant sandbox!) and was even pretty good at walking in it. She took one or two faceplants, which resulted in sand sticking all over her face (because of all the sunblock) but it didn't actually seem to bother her. One day, she randomly started doing yoga poses, purposely sticking her head in the sand (and Marty and I cracked up, which probably encouraged her to keep doing it). Yoga eventually led to sand in the eye, but I think that one sand in the eye incident in a week of beaching is pretty good.

When I was a kid, my family used to go to Ocean City vacation every year, so it was a little surreal being there with my daughter. We took her for a walk on the Boardwalk and to Trimpers Rides (a Wolfe/Meredith/Todd/Bittner tradition) for a ride on the Merry-go-Round. I have a picture with me and my mom on that very same ride (and same horse!) when I was a baby. It was fun to share my childhood memories and traditions with my own daughter, and next year she will be able to enjoy it all even more.

Next year will be here faster than we think.