Peaceful Day

Since we moved a few weeks ago, I've gotten in the habit of taking Baby Boy to a park every morning that is about a 15-minute walk from our house. He loves to ride in the stroller and often babbles and sings. Sometimes he tries to imitate the sounds of sirens or dogs barking. This morning I pushed him in a swing at the park (he giggles hilariously when I push him from behind for a while and then run around to the front and say, "Peekaboo!"). Then we went down a slide a few times, and we patted some trees and bushes together. (I so want to live in the country, but I do the best I can in the city to introduce my baby to nature).

Then Baby Boy took a two-hour morning nap (which he very rarely does). When he woke up, we played "Come to Mama,"--I sat him down in the middle of the hallway and then I went to the end of the hallway and cajoled him to come to me. It took him about 10 minutes, but he eventually got there by laying on his back and scooting backwards to me. He's nine months now and not crawling, but I'm not too worried--my mom says I went straight from rolling and scooting to walking and never crawled, so maybe Baby Boy is taking after me. Still, babies are just so cute when they crawl that I would like Baby Boy to crawl if only for that reason, but I know he'll develop at his own pace.

Then I put him on my back in the Ergo (yay, I finally figured out how to do it! It's not as easy as the women on the video clips make it seem) and vacuumed the house and did the dishes and prepared some "finger foods" for him. Hubby and I can't eat in front of him any more without giving him some food, too, or else Baby Boy gets very upset. He wants to be in on the action (and do whatever he sees Papa and Mama doing)!

Oops

Kind of funny that this should follow my post on baby food, but...ever forget to feed your kid lunch? I did today. I realized it as I was nursing him after he woke up from his afternoon nap at around 2:45. I finished nursing him and then gave him his solid food lunch. The break from routine didn't seem to bother him, but I'll try not to let it happen again. :-)

Baby Food

On Mother's Day, Hubby took me to lunch at an Italian restaurant close to our new house. He asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day, and I said, "Well, there are a couple of books I've been wanting...". I ordered Breastfeeding and Natural Child Spacing, by Sheila K. Kippley, and The Naturally Healthy Pregnancy, by Shonda Parker.

We are very slowly uncovering the carpet in our house as we put boxes of things away. I have most of my kitchen things put away now. Yesterday and this morning, I made approximately 8 dozen food cubes for Baby Boy, in 5 varieties:

1) chicken, barley, carrots, celery, tomato, green beans, peas, onion
2) chicken, barley, peas
3) chicken, sweet potato, applesauce
4) beef, sweet potato
5) bananas, avocado

I feed Baby Boy meat twice a day because it is the best source of iron (well, along with breastmilk). So far, I don't give him any supplements, so I make sure his food is nutritious. I buy organic foods for him whenever possible. I make him porridges with different grains, such as brown rice, quinoa, millet, barley, and oats. One meal a day, he gets whole plain yogurt mixed with a fruit or fruit and a grain. Baby Boy loves to eat. :-) I breastfeed him 4-5 times a day. My goal is to keep breastfeeding for at least 18 months. I enjoy it, and so does he, and it's good for both of us. However, I do look forward to being able to wear dresses again. I don't have any nursing dresses, because they are very expensive to buy new and I've never seen any at secondhand stores.

Unpacking

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few days have been! My back and feet are so sore--partly from lifting and unpacking boxes, partly from holding Baby Boy more than usual--this move has been tough on him. On Sunday, he just cried and cried as people carried everything out of our old apartment to go in the moving truck. We had a lot of people from church helping us; otherwise, there's no way we could have moved all that stuff in one day. All the chaos has been traumatic for Baby Boy...he doesn't want me to put him down or leave him by himself. He is nursing a lot longer than usual, like he doesn't want to let me go. It's kind of nice to be his comforter. I like that he feels secure with me.

We have three bedrooms now. One for Baby Boy, one for Hubby and me, and one for an office/storage room. Hubby found a nice California king bed for us on Craigslist. We just got it set up last night. It's really firm, which we like. It feels like an acre compared to the queen bed we've slept on for the past two years. A California king is four inches longer than a regular king bed, which is so nice for Hubby, who is almost six-and-a-half feet tall.

We also have two bathrooms now, which can be convenient. I have less space in this kitchen than I had in my old one, so I'm working on paring down my kitchen gear.

We have a little balcony. After we finish getting things out of boxes and putting everything away, I want to put some plants out there. It doesn't get a lot of sun, so I'm thinking maybe petunias or some other flowers that do okay in shade.

I love it that there is a public library ten blocks from our new house! It's a small one, without storytimes or many special activities, but at least I can put books on hold online and pick them up at this branch. I love to read, and so does Baby Boy, so it's very exciting to me to live so close to a library.

A friend of mine from church found out that she didn't have to go in to work, so she called and asked if I wanted to go to coffee. Hubby had the car with Baby Boy's carseat in it, so we couldn't drive anywhere, but we decided to walk to a coffee shop we had heard about. Baby Boy came too, of course. He enjoys riding in his stroller. The coffee shop turned out to be a great place for conversation, and they have good food, too. I am sure I will go back again sometime.

The reason we moved, among other things, is that we are part of a home church, and we are trying to all move into the same part of town so we can have fellowship with each other and reach out to the community together. Neither Hubby nor I specifically have the gift of evangelism (if you're wondering, Hubby's main spiritual gifts are discernment, teaching, service/helps, and exhortation; mine are mercy and possibly hospitality), but we still want to share Jesus with people. We just need to start doing it. As soon as I get my kitchen stuff unpacked, I am planning to make cookies for the other people in our building. Then maybe we can invite someone over for dinner and games and start to build relationships.

Well, there's so much I could be working on...I'm going to do a little more and then call it a night.

Roseola

I am posting this here mainly for my own personal record, but anyone else is welcome to know too:

I am pretty sure Baby Boy had roseola but is over it now. He had had a slight fever (only around 99-100 degrees) off and on for a couple days last week. I didn't think much of it, and just breastfed him a lot, and then he was fine. Then on the evening of May 1, I noticed a rash on his chest and tummy. In the morning, it was covering his front and back, on his neck, and very lightly on his face. He had no fever at all at that time and was perfectly happy, so from my research I concluded it was not measles (because he would have been acting a lot sicker and would have a high fever), but roseola. It was mostly gone yesterday (May 3), and seems to be all gone now.

Moving Update

I am feeling a little ::ahem:: a lot behind on packing. We're moving in three days! Yikes! Not only do I still have a lot of packing to do, but I want to be caught up on laundry before we move because we're not positive we'll have a washer and dryer as soon as we move in (a friend from church is generously letting us borrow her practically-new washer and dryer; the place she's in now came with a washer and dryer, so hers have just been sitting in storage for several years).

I usually cook Baby Boy's food ahead of time and freeze servings in ice cube trays, but I'm thinking I might just buy some store-bought baby food for the next few days. It would save a lot of time, as using homemade food involves heating the cubes in a saucepan, grinding up grains in the blender and cooking them, and then doing all the dishes!

Well, I'm off to find something not-too-noisy (no pots and pans!) to pack while Baby Boy takes a nap.