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Baby wants popcorn!

I missed last Thursday's farmer's market at San Carlos. My hubs was sweet enough to bring me home a bag of kettle corn from there. As soon as he gave it to me, I started munching right away.

Zack, who was sitting next to me, stared at me intently. It was his first time to see popcorn. He probably thought it must be something really yummy since mommy munched non-stop. He opened his mouth thinking I would give him some. After I refused to share my goodies, he tried to dip his hands in the bag and feed himself. I squeezed shut the bag's opening before he could get any. Well, only strong-willed kiddos like our little one would rethink their strategy and devise new ways to get their way. The next thing I knew, he dove onto the bag like a hungry hyena and bit the popcorn several times through the see-through bag! NOOOOO!!!

I wish I had a camera to capture the whole thing. It was so funny!!!

8 months and counting...

It has been a while since I've last posted something on this blog. Life had just been ultra crazy lately with Zack getting sick twice in a row (story to follow...), then later having his 2 lower teeth come out one at a time (story to follow...). Everyone in our household was sleep deprived and exhausted! It did not help that the chores piled up like crazy. So between caring for a very irritable child and keeping up with the chores, I barely had time to blog (or even catch up on missed sleep!).

Our little boy is growing up so fast. Over the past month, he seems to have learned a lot of new tricks, and his daddy and I are still trying to catch up. Oh boy! Here are a few highlights of the past month:

• Sippy vs. Straw?: Although we've started him with the sippy a while back, he seems to have gotten better at it the past month. There are lesser spills (from his mouth) and lesser fluid left in the cup. He must be swallowing it now (where else would it go?!). He also started drinking from a straw. At first we'd let him play with our drinks since we knew he can't suck from it, but we stopped this bad habit after seeing a tapioca pearl inch its way up the straw. (That day, we couldn't figure out which emotion triumphed the moment: being proud of him for his new trick or being stunned by the possibility of him choking because of our carelessness). It's still a toss up which of the two methods he prefers. Lately though, he wants to drink straight from the water bottle (no spout or straw). I guess which ever method mommy uses for herself is what he'll want to do... such a mommy copycat!
• Crawling: After he learned how to get up on his fours, he started crawling shortly. Thanks to his lean physique, he was able to lift his body well and master cross crawling in no time. Now there's no stopping him from crawling (bed, wood, carpet, grass) and he'll get up to "practice" even at 3 in the morning when everyone in the house, including him, is still half asleep!
• Scaling and climbing: I can't remember if he started creeping up the furniture first before he learned to crawl. I just remembered it happened in a flash! I was busy figuring out where the flash setting on my BB was. Before I finished setting the flash, there he was giggling next to my BB. Since then, he'd always force his way up the crib, the couch, his toys, the coffee table, etc. He'd climb over sleeping mommy, daddy and anything that comes in his way. Once, he attempted to climb up the stairs (supervised by mommy and daddy, of course!). He got up a few steps before we had to cut his trip short (we realized we haven't vacuumed the stairs recently!). He has such a brave, adventurous, playful and ultra persistent spirit pushing him to get mobile fast. (Sooner or later, though, he'll get off-balanced and knock himself off to the floor. Poor boy's head is bumped and bruised from all his adventures!)
• Teething: His lower two front teeth came out this month. Boy did he became really irritated and ultra drooly! (as if he wasn't already!) More about this in a story to follow...
• Finger foods: We started feeding him with finger foods the past month. During his doctor's check-up at 7.5 months, our doc asked us if we've started giving him finger foods. I confidently said "No. He doesn't have teeth!" Well I should have kept my mouth shut to spare me from the "dummy mom" embarrassment. Apparently, they do not need teeth for that. So now, he enjoys his o-shaped cereals so much. He dunks his whole hand into the tray/bowl but manages to pick up the o's with his forefinger and thumb most of the time. Now he just has to learn how to get a grip on them long enough until they reach his mouth.
• Word Association: "Where is lolo? Where is lola?" (looks at his portrait with his paternal grandparents on the wall) "Where is grandma's portrait?" (looks at grandma's painting on the wall) "Where is Boogie?" (looks at Uncle Randy's picture with Boogie on the shelf). "Where is Mickey?" (looks at the Mickey Mouse balloon in the room). "Where is Mama Mary?" (looks at the altar). He knows how to identify his favorite people and objects.
• Babbling: Babbling is not new to him but the volume and the expanded range of syllables is new to us! He says a lot of different things now and often they correspond to what we're talking about at the moment ("Chi" for Poochi - grandma's dog, "boo-ie" for Boogie - lolo's dog, "Mama Mey" for Mama Mary, "Bat Ta" for bath tub). We're not sure whether he knows what he's saying or everything is just pure co-incidence, but whatever it is, we find it really cute!

Lapsit for Pre-Walkers: March Session 2

This time, I remembered to charge and bring my camera... but I forgot it in the car. How stupid! Luckily, my cellphone had enough juice to take a snapshot. Here's Zack playing with the other kids in Lapsit .

On Night Terrors

Sundays are usually a busy day for us. We go to church and socialize with our friends from the parish. After which, we go to my parents' house for our weekly family time. On a typical Sunday, we're out by noon and back by close to midnight.

We didn't realize how bad our Sunday routine was until we recently noticed a pattern in Zack's Sunday night wakings. He'd usually fall asleep on my parents bed, wake up when we're strapping him into the carseat, stay barely awake for the 10 minute drive then pass out for the night on the crib. Since we're unable to follow our night-night routine (bath, lotion, sleepy music, books, bedtime prayer) on Sundays, he'd wake up crying several times throughout the night. and We'd try to soothe him back to sleep, either with his pacifier or by rocking him in our arms. Normally, that would do it, and he'd go back to bed for about two hours or so before the whole things would start all over again.

Last Sunday was different. He woke up screaming his guts out. I picked him up, tried the pacifier, rocked him to sleep, attempted to sing him a song and pulled all the tricks out of the hat. Nothing worked. He kept crying and kicking and wiggling. A few minutes into this, it suddenly hit me that he might be having some sort of night terror. I remembered reading about this online and about what caregivers may do when this occurs -- nothing! Kids experiencing night terrors look awake but are actually asleep and unable to respond to soothing techniques. I just held him in my arms and sat on the bed until the episode ended. After about 11 minutes or so, he fell asleep again, as if nothing happened!

Lesson learned: Do not stay out too late and religiously follow our night-night routine. This will help him unwind properly and let go of the super tiring day (or in our case, super tiring weekend).

Lapsit for Pre-Walkers: March Session 1

Last Monday, Zack and I went to our first Lapsit session. Lapsit is a free program at our local library where kids under 12 months can come together for story-time, parent-child activities and baby socialization. Of the 7 babies in the class, Zack was the youngest. Most of the others were 1 month older than him.

As soon as we were done registering and getting the class hand-outs, we sat on the floor next to a soon to be 12-month old kid (whose name I still can't pronounce!). Being a bigger kid, he sat tall and upright already. To my amazement, my son also tried to sit as upright as he can for as long as he could hold it. It was unusual for Zack to sit up straight, moreso for a long period of time. At home, he'd rather roll around, wiggle like a worm on his belly or stand up holding on to mommy, daddy or the couch. When we try to get him to sit, he'd just bend down and eat his toes. I guess he was trying to get a really good first impression from his new playmate. LOL!

The session went by quickly. We recited sang nursery rhymes, did some baby exercises, danced the waltz, etc. At one point, the facilitator went around reading books to the kids. As she did this, Zack seemed to get really impatient. He wanted to turn the pages of the book already before the story teller was ready to move on. Hahaha! He was also very busy trying to charm the female library volunteers... so typical of him! (Just like his dad!)

The last activity for the night was baby play time. They laid a big blankie on the floor and put toys in the middle for the kids to play with. I think Zack got overwhelmed because he initially laid frozen on his tummy watching the other kids attack the toy pile. I tried to offer him a toy but he seemed more interested in observing the other kids. At one point, one kid (lightly) hit him at the back of his head (in Filipino: binatukan siya!). I wanted to see how he would handle the ugly, bully kid. Well, he was just too focused on what was happening in front of him so he just ignored the kid and let his mommy deal with him (and yeah she did!).

I wish I had a camera to capture our first session! I was too embarrassed to look like an ultra-eager mom, only to find out that the other moms were more picture-happy than me. Oh well! I will bring one next time.

Our five lifesavers

The baby/parenthood market segment is probably one of the most abused and exploited sectors in the commercial world. Entrepreneurs come up with a plethora of (often times useless) products that clutter the brains of inexperienced parents. Hubby and I (mostly I!) have both become victims of baby shopping sprees, hoping that at some point, we might hit it right.

Here are the top 5 things we've bought so far without regrets:

1. Baby Einstein: Sing and Play CD
"John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt! La la la la la la...." This has proven to be our most effective "fussy-fier". I really don't know what makes this stand out from our son Zack's CD collection. He just loves listening to this so much. If we're on the road and he starts getting bored, we'll just play his favorite tracks, and he'll instantaneously change his mood. When we're home and he hears this playing on the boombox, he'll start jumping up and down and squealing in delight. Even grandpa uses this heaven-sent tool to calm him down when we're away.

2. Fisher-Price Soothe & Glow Seahorse
There are very limited choices in toys appropriate from birth. "Mr. Seahorse" is one of them. It really does what its says. It soothes and it glows! It plays some calming music mashed up with bubbly underwater sounds, making the baby's sleeping environment really relaxing. After many months of using this, it has become our mommy-baby language for "it's time for bed!"


3. Precious Moments Plush Prayer Doll
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, that the angels watch me through the night and keep me in their blessed sight. Amen." Who wouldn't love these cute little dolls? Although these are priced at $42 at Amazon for a pair, we got "Joseph" (the boy doll), which we named after our parish church St. Joseph, for only $7 at Walgreens. Joseph had been Zack's 1st best friend. When Zack was just 2 1/2 months old, he would stare intently at Joseph as he recited the night-night prayer. As he grew up, he would talk to Joseph and would feel really sad when Joseph stopped talking back to him. They had a "brotherly-like" relationship that was really cute!

4. Fisher-Price Deluxe Auto Mirror
Parents who have not faced the "nightmares" of traveling with baby on a rear-facing carseat should consider themselves lucky. Unfortunately for us, we deal with this all the time. Zack gets bored and agitated sitting for a long time and seeing nothing but the cream colored apholstery. In our desperate attempt to make car trips bearable for everybody, we decided to give this mirror a try. It plays endlessly-looping kiddie songs and has blinking lights. The nice part is it comes with a remote control that allows the driver to turn the music and lights on & off anytime (the repeating songs can really get hypnotizing for adults at some point!)

5. Evenflo Exersaucer Smartsteps ABC
OK, so we did not really buy this. It was a Christmas present from Grandma and Grandpa. Still, it is one of the best baby products we've used ever. It allows us to put Zack down for a short period of time so we can attend to some chores a few, visible feet away. Sometimes, we just sit next to the exersaucer to watch his face light up as he vigorously jumps up and down, hammers the toys with his tiny palms or even chews on anything that is within reach. We've also tried other exersaucer models but so far, this particular one seems to have the smartest design. Unfortunately though, this is only good for a child up to 30", which means we will have to say bye-bye to this wonderland in a few months.

My first homemade puree

I wanted to serve the little boy with some TLC so I did some research on how to make and store home prepped food. I found these websites that really helped me: www.wholesomebaby.com and www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.com.

Using our blender, I pureed some Sweet Potatoes from Trader Joe's (lightly thinned with water). Then, I poured the contents into a KidCo BPA-free freezable food tray and a recycled Earth's Best baby food bottle, then stashed everything in the freezer. It was that easy!!!
And since it's frozen, we can use it even a month or more from now. How convenient!

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

My hubby and I learned another great lesson as parents: the warning "Do not leave child unattended" was there for a purpose! Our little boy had his first fall recently. We were supposed to go out for dessert, and as we were busy preparing, our little boy slipped through our eyes. We just heard a cry and saw him lying on the floor (and no, it wasn't a carpeted area).

He was on his Bumbo (luckily on the floor) playing with his "magic mirror" when he decided he was tired of sitting on that lousy chair. He always hated that chair, but he loved his "magic mirror" so much that he'd usually be able to bear being on that chair. We think he tried to stand up but ended up taking a nose dive to the floor.

Our son's forehead looked like as if someone poked a lump of playdough with the fingertip. There was a tiny indentation, instead of an outward bump, which adults normally have. Being clueless dummies, we had no idea what to do. Hence, we called my nurse sister-in-law for advice. Hopefully, this stupidity never hits anyone but in case it does, here is what she told us. Since the baby was not crying and already calm (back to being playful actually), he probably isn't in any pain. Nonetheless, we should apply cold compress for 20 mins (not more, not less) and make sure he doesn't fall asleep in the next 30 mins. Babies heads are naturally cushy in case booboos like this happens but still we must avoid accidents like this. The thing we'd like to avoid as a result of head bumps is the baby having seizures caused by trauma to the brain. Should we call the doctor? In our son's case, thank God it wasn't necessary!

I'm still kinda upset this happened this way. I know at some point he will experience falling, but I was hoping it wouldn't be out of our extreme negligence. Oh well! Lesson definitely learned!

Welcome to Mommyhood for Dummy!

I never really had much experience with babies so when Zack came to our lives, I basically was a blank slate. I watched our tiny 4-pounder and wondered how in the world I'll manage to nurture and raise him without breaking him in half. I couldn't even keep a tiny pot of cactus alive. What more a human being! I absolutely felt like the biggest dummy to pop out a child from my tummy. Well, 6 months have passed since then, and our son is very much alive and healthy. My hubby and I must be doing something right!

Welcome to Mommyhood for Dummy, a blog chronicling my day to day adventures as a mom. Through this, I hope to be able to share information to help fellow dummies out there (or at least give some expert a laugh).