Birthday Celebration

I know some people don't do parties for children who are very young, and I'm still not sure where I stand on the issue. I do think gifts at toddler parties aren't necessary, IMHO. Kids this age don't expect it. We didn't do more than a family get-together for Lo's first birthday. But he has so many cute friends in this area, and celebrating with them would be exciting for Lo with his social personality. Plus also, I like parties. =) As Jerry kept reminding me, the party is as much for the child in me as it is for our child Lo. I'm ok with that.


For Lo's birthday we intended to do a "Things That Go" party since he loves trains, trucks, airplanes, etc. Months in advance, I started making a helicopter pinata (with the gleeful help of Little Hands Lo of course). Cakes got baked and sat in the freezer for weeks, decorations and party favors piled up in the closet...and then as the time drew near for Lo's birthday I got intimidated. A few reasons for my hesitation: the schedule seemed FULL right around his birthday--Halloween parties and hayrides, and the beginning of November full of church events that couldn't be held later in the month because of Thanksgiving. Furthermore, location stymied me: it happens to be freezing most days in early November, so we couldn't hold the party at a park, renting locations is more expensive than we wanted to spend on a toddler's party, and our apartment is too small to have more than a handful of preschoolers running around. To top it all off, by the time his birthday hit, Lo was about a week into healing from a cough/cold. So we mulled over not doing the party at all. But Lo was kinda asking about that pinata he'd seen sitting on top of our fridge for months...and we had a mountain of Halloween candy to get rid of via said pinata...So we hijacked the weekly church playgroup for Lo's birthday celebration. He'd caught his cold at playgroup to begin with, so I rationalized the other kids wouldn't mind a little additional exposure. ahem. I had a little too much fun doing that train cake. The engine is a pound cake, made from scratch and super delicious if you ignore the gallons of food coloring in its frosting layer. The coal car is actually rather healthy, again made-from-scratch banana nut bread with whole wheat flour. Crushed oreos for the "coal." The third car in the lineup was the most popular for eating; gingerbread with homemade lemon ginger frosting. The kids at the party were jumping up and down with excitement when they saw the train cake. And I had lofty dreams of adding another car or two plus a caboose to this train cake lineup. Thank goodness Jerry convinced me to rein it in, lol.
I am yelling like a crazy woman in that pinata clip because I could envision all too clearly the possibility of some kid getting whacked in the face with the pinata stick. Yes, chaotic. Yes, lots of fun. We'll probably do a pinata for Lo's birthday every year as I cannot imagine a better way to disperse the leftover Halloween candy. At home we kept things simple, singing the Happy Birthday song to Lo myriad times throughout the day in several different languages, opened a gift. Didn't have birthday hats, which Lo kept asking about. He must have learned about birthday hats from watching Signing Time birthday episode. Something to include next year.

Birthday Boy

Interspersed with darling birthday photos from his 2-year session a couple weeks ago, we present with pride our very own 2-year-old Lo! 

Contemplative, content.  And cold.  :) 

Talking: Lo frequently uses 4-5 word sentences in English (a few recent examples: "Daddy, take more photos;" or "Mommy, I have that spider bee."  His grammar is a little off most of the time, but pronunciation is more and more clear.  We LOVE his talking.  Another cute talking he does is to say "um" when he is thinking.  Like if I ask him a question that requires choice, he'll say "UM," and pause for a second before answering.  My little grown-up Lo. 

Jerry claims this was the first time he ever had Lo Lo do the "shoulder ride" on him. 

Kindness: Lo often gives spontaneous, appropriate "thank you's," crowing "Thank You Mommy!!" When I hand him a block for example, or give him a snack.  And while eating, he often says, "Mommy's turn," and hands me his floaty-filled drink to share.  :)  We are working on using soft hands with playmates.  He is a huggy, loving child, but on occasion intersperses those hugs with hitting for no apparent reason.  The pediatrician said it is normal for kids this age to be inappropriately physical, and to just keep lovingly reminding "soft hands."  She suggested Lo needs more opportunities to practice playing with other kids his age, maybe adding another play date or two each week.  Said maybe the hitting comes from being over-excited at the social opportunity.  I'm doing some reading on the subject...oh, how parenting humbles me. 

That foot turned to one edge is EXACTLY what Jerry does in photos!  Our wedding photographers commented on it.  Appears to have some genetic propensity...

Singing: Songs of a toddler melt my heart.  Sometimes we have the treat to overhear the soft, happy notes of Lo's made-up songs while he plays by himself.  He often imitates our singing/sings along.  He sings clearly the words "Happy Birthday" and "Do Re Mi." 

Bare feet in the sand feel great!

Counting: A few times I have heard Lo count correctly "1, 2, 3, 4, 5" but more often he just says "One, Two, One, Two..." etc. We trained him to say "Two" when people ask "How old are you," because we didn't want to have to untrain him from saying "One," but now that he is finally REALLY "Two" he only says he is "One."  What the heck??  Who taught him to say he is one year old? 

Where'd those feet go??

Games: He LOVES hide and seek, using the Chinese term "Lay(4) My(2)" (I am guessing on the pin yin because it is Cantonese). He pronounces it "Yay My" and says it with such glee and delight I cannot help but play the game with him a million times a day. 

Is that not the cutest face. 

 Shapes and Colors: He knows all his colors in Chinese and English, pointing accurately to a request given in English, Mandarin or Chinese.  Verbally stating mostly English but sometimes says them in Chinese.  Shapes he loves in the shape sorter and seems to recognize the different edges readily, but verbally only says correctly "heart," "star," and calls an octogon "Stop," and a circle "ball" or "O." 

We have loved having the beach just minutes away from us...will miss it when we move to Idaho in a couple months.

 Another game: Jerry taught Lo to sort his play-plastic foods into "Healthy" and "Bad" piles.  Lo is correct most of the time, but sometimes emphatically tries to tell me lettuce is "UNhealthy," for example.  He seems to care a little too much about my approval of him getting the answer right or wrong.  Tries hard to guess if he isn't sure. 

Center of our lives

 Feelings: Lo feels at varying times obvious embarrassment, pride, shame, elation, love, anger, confidence, probably so much more emotions than even what I've just thought of off the top of my head.  He is such a complex, amazing creation.  I guess all kids are.  But really, my own seems so much more intense than what I notice in other kids.  Lo has a definite dominance to his personality, a sort of aggression that will someday come in handy in life if he can channel it appropriately.  :) He is outgoing, social to the max, and never seems to fear new situations.  He's the type of kid who will jump into the pool first, follow bigger kids onto paths he is too small to handle, and so forth.  Daring, exciting, energetic and yet contemplative with a love of reading, drawing, and gluing noodles to paper.  I have great hopes for this combination of talents. 

This just might be my favorite pic of Jerry and me to date. 

Jerry and I think Lo is a good combination of both our strengths, and we even notice our son showing aptitudes perhaps beyond what he got from his parents.  It is a miracle to watch his personality unfold with each passing day.  We are so happy to have this great little boy in our family.  Happy Birthday Mr. Terrific Two-Year-Old Lo Lo!

First Birthday Fun

Yesterday Lo decided since he turned one year old, he could fit into Daddy's shoes now. I found him trying to put one on, so I helped him get another one on his foot and then he just stood there, like "Um, now what?" He couldn't walk in these shoes of course. Since we will be in Hong Kong for Thanksgiving this year, we decided to do a turkey earlier in November. Lo's birthday feast seemed the perfect excuse. Turkey and cake. What more could a kid want.

We were feeling frugal with the cake, and just took a quick trip to the local grocery store where they give out samples. Yep, Lo's cake is just two sample slices wedged together. He didn't seem to mind.

Oh, and the banner in the background! "Free" through vistaprints (we paid shipping). Lo keeps waving hello to the hands on the banner. Funny kid.

For the birthday activity, we took Lo to the mall. It was special since we normally have some kind of agenda when we take him shopping, and have to rush around, not letting him explore like he wants to. So this time, we just let Lo wander around to his heart's content. We sat him in these coin-op boats, trains, cars, etc. (without putting in a coin) and he loved it. We also spent some time in ToysRus, with the video showing a little of that fun. Overall it seemed like a great birthday. Special and different compared to the humdrum routine of life, but not too big or stressful. Wish we could have done a party with friends out here in Ohio, since Lo has so many cute "baby friends" around his age. But with lots of travel (Jerry even has to go out of town for a business trip in a few days!) and church activities, etc. we just couldn't figure out a good time to get everybody together. Oh well. Lo didn't know the difference anyway.

I'll get some photos/video posted next week or so of his Boise Birthday Bash. Waiting on family members to send their photos and videos to us...thanks again everybody for manning the cameras while I chased the baby around. =)

The toy we ended up buying him is a "bath-ketball hoop," which is nice because he really didn't have a single true "bath toy," despite all his other mountains of play things. He loved these little basketballs so much, we couldn't get them out of his hands even at bedtime and he slept with one.

He did not ingest one single speck of this birthday cake. Good thing I hadn't slaved over baking it. He just kept handing me fingerfuls of frosting...

Whittling away at it

Well, I still have this intimidating chunk of photos left to blog from our Boise trip--and no time to do it, it seems. So I'll just whip out a short post. Another free birthday meal for me, my grandparents took us out to Tucanos. That Lo enjoyed sampling everything from my plate, and most enjoyed strawberries, as you may observe from seeing his face/shirt: Wish we remembered to bring a bib! This next photo is blurry, but precious enough that it still got posted. Lo feeding Grandpa Clark (this is actually Great Grandpa now):

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for the fun lunch, and especially thanks for making sure the whole restaurant sang to me, Grandpa (I would have dodged it if it weren't for your "helpful" reminding of the server, lol).

birthday stuff

My birthday recently turned into one of those glorious week-long events, with lovingkindnesses showed me by myriad friends and family. I am so thankful to get to have birthday fun in both Idaho and Ohio. I feel very loved! One fun thing we did here in Ohio was to visit a local Hibachi restaurant. It offers free meals for the birthday guest. When Lo saw all the fireworks and clattering of the chef, his eyes just about popped out of his head and his mouth dropped open. It was so funny and cute how amazed he stayed for nearly the whole mealtime. We didn't have our camera, but just picture that our Lo looked like this:

The most precious part for Jerry was when Lo got a little scared of the flames (they jumped several feet high into the air!) and then our sweet baby boy clutched his daddy's shirt and snuggled into his shoulder for comfort.

Also wonderful: we shared a table with another family, and their boy was an aspiring magician. He did magic tricks for us while we waited for the food/show to start. Adorable.

The rest of the story

Just in time for Little Tam turning one month of age...the absurdly long, much hyped, over-anticipated birth story! And some BOP warning for those who care about that sort of thing.

Preliminaries

Halloween: a few days past Little Tam's EDD. I wakened at my usual insomniac 4am, and a bit later did a webcam conference with our Hong Kong family, then had a full day of fun at the zoo, forest park, duck pond, went shopping, got my hair cut, and finished the day with an evening at our friends’ home. While at our friends’ house carving pumpkins and passing out candy to trick or treaters, I felt exhausted and noticed occasional abdominal cramping but thought nothing of it. When my sweetheart and I returned home, we quickly prepared for sleep.

Early First Stage

As soon as I showered and tried to lay down, my cramping turned into a regular, systematic occurrence. The waves felt mildly uncomfortable, like the low belly ache I sometimes have felt with menstruation. It was interesting enough that I could not fall asleep through it. I told my husband it felt different than anything I had felt thus far in the pregnancy, and I thought this could be “it.” When I asked him to start timing the pressure waves, we both realized we were not sure exactly how to do it. After all our rehearsing! Were we supposed to time beginning of one to beginning of another? Or just the space between the end of one and the beginning of another? Duration meant what....? Oh dear. To add to the confusion, we also realized half my hypnosis scripts were still only on CD. We had wanted to transfer them all to MP3 files on my phone, so I could listen more easily in the car and at the hospital (the only way we have to play CDs is on our computer). So my husband went to do the transfer and I struggled to stay focused on my own, a bit perturbed with myself for not taking care of these little issues earlier. For a couple hours I listened to the hypnosis scripts. I do not recall which scripts I listened to—perhaps “birthing day,” even though I doubted this was truly my birthing time. I don’t know what I expected to feel, but mild menstrual cramping apparently wasn’t what I had imagined.

1:30 am-We telephoned our doula, Kathy. I remember feeling quite embarrassed, apologizing for waking her at such a terrible hour, and repeating, “I just don’t know if this is the real thing, but it feels different from what I felt any other time in this pregnancy…Oh, I don’t know!” She told me she was on her way. She had arrived 10 minutes late for the last birth she attended, missing the actual birth entirely, so we didn’t want to take any chances of her missing our sweet Little’s grand entrance. If we had known he would not be born until another thirty hours later, we would have told Kathy to take her time. =)

While Kathy drove from Connecticut (about an hour and a half away from us), my husband took a nap. Because of daylight savings taking effect that night, his phone automatically changed back one hour coincidentally during his nap. When he woke, he looked at the time on his phone and said, “Wait. Did I just sleep for two minutes only?” (in reality he slept for 1 hr 2 mins) I still smile about that. While he napped I got more comfortable and kept relaxing through the pressure waves (which were about every ten minutes apart). I ate some cottage cheese and tried to be diligent about drinking water as well. Once Kathy arrived I felt greatly reassured as her expertise and assistance helped me get more into the groove with my hypnosis. With each pressure wave, Kathy would massage my back and my sweet husband would recite portions of the scripts. I remember most hearing him say over and over again, “Your cervix is soft and dilating quickly.” As hours passed that night, I caught myself smiling through many of the pressure waves and feeling increasingly confident and happy. I made a lot of moaning type of vocalizations because it helped me focus and felt good.

Around 6 am?: pressure waves were five minutes apart and lasting one minute each. When we called the midwife, she recommended, "take a hot shower, and then if the waves are still that regular and frequent, call back." During the shower my husband kept timing the waves. They got less intense feeling while I was in the shower, with the waves becoming subdued and feeling as only a faint abdominal pressure. But they also got more closely spaced—four minutes apart now. The midwife said I could come to the birth center. While I walked into the birth center from the parking lot, I had several pressure waves, and with each one, I simply stopped walking to breathe through it. During one pressure wave, I knelt against the birth ball, and for another, leaned on a hand rail. Kathy and Jerry assisted as usual, and the two nurses who were walking with us into the building remarked on how impressed they were with our whole routine. When the midwife did an internal exam around 8am, my cervix was dilated to a 7. I felt triumphant and excited. One of the nurses said he had seen hypno births before, but mine seemed to be going exceptionally well. I agreed. I was eager to get in the birthing pool, but the midwife said she wanted to see me progressed a bit further. After awhile she checked me again and I was dilated to an 8. Around this time I had a hep lock put in for administration of antibiotics (I was GBS positive). In retrospect, I wish I had listened to a “change of plans” script for this procedure, because I felt some internal conflict about the concept of intrapartum antibiotics. I also had an IV several years ago, and remembered intensely disliking the feeling of an IV in my hand. My hypnosis wasn’t as effective to numb my hand as I would have like it to be. Again, I think listening to that “change of plans” script would have helped my brain accept and feel comfortable with the IV at this point.

Pausing Point

My doula, my husband, and I walked around the hospital grounds for a bit. As it was Sunday morning, a local church near the hospital had bells chiming. They delighted me. Overall at this time, I felt light and happy in my heart. I had quite a few intense pressure waves very closely spaced during the walk. I remember feeling like they came one on top of the other, with no chance to rest in between. When we returned from the walk, I got in the birth pool. I joked and smiled, ate ice cream and just generally felt like a queen. However, part way through my pool time the nurses had to attach my hep lock to the IV for another dose of antibiotics. The procedure distracted me from feeling comfortable in the water, and additionally the tub sides ended up being hard plastic and not as easy to relax against as I had imagined. My pressure waves almost stopped entirely while I was in the water, and I began to feel intense exhaustion after being awake for so many hours. I announced my intentions of taking a nap. The midwife said she would like to do an internal exam first, and when she found I was still only dilated 8 cm, she said I needed to stay up and moving around. She was concerned that I had not progressed for a few hours. I felt disappointed at her verdict, and again, was starting to feel sleep deprivation creeping up on me. My midwife’s concern sparked a bit of fear in my heart. She told me this stalled labor was a complication and began discussing changes that needed to be made to my birth plan. Again, a “change of plans” script would have been valuable at this point!! But we did not do it yet, I suppose because having never read this script, I did not realize how appropriate it would have been.

I got pretty upset when the second time the antibiotic was administered, it wasn’t mixed with saline (or whatever they do to make it feel less intense). My hand became puffy like a balloon, fingers unbendable, and it throbbed horribly. I asked to have the hep lock removed after the dose of antibiotic was finished and the request was denied because of safety reasons. I did a fear release session and realized my #1 fear was conflict with my midwife. We had only met once before the birth. I felt very uncomfortable with how we communicated with each other.

Late First Stage

I began to suspect the midwife did not accept or encourage my efforts at using hypnosis. For example, she accused me once of being “TOO relaxed,” implying that my comfortable state was part of the problem for why labor had stalled in the first place (as if the labor would start progressing once I got stressed and tense?). Furthermore, she kept forgetting to use the hypnotic language I requested (calling pressure waves “contractions,” etc.). We ended up needing to break my waters, and administer pitocin. After these steps, I was relieved to find the birthing waves resumed with a passion. The waves felt powerful in a way that overwhelmed me at times. I remember going completely limp during one pressure wave, turning my switch to "OFF" but then suddenly felt the wave grow more intense as I relaxed. The increased intensity startled me, so I turned my switch back to "CENTER" and sat up. During transformation (Hypnobabies speak for transition), the sensations rushed up and down my whole body in an indescribable flood of shaking, chills, vomiting, and so forth. I do not recall feeling pain during this time, but rather just feeling satisfied when I finally threw up. The vomit was pink and chunky because I had recently eaten pizza, scrambled eggs, and cranberry juice. I am thankful the birthing center let me keep eating whatever I wanted all throughout the birthing time.

Pushing

The midwife did another internal exam and as per my request, did not tell me dilation. But later my doula told me I was a 9 at that point. During pushing, I felt a little confused about when I was having a pressure wave, because it felt like they were happening constantly. I ended up needing to rub the palm of my hand over my belly to discern the changes in firmness on abdominal surface that would tell me when a wave came. Contrary to my birth plan, the midwife directed my pushing (“You do much better laying down,” she kept saying), but at that point in the birth I had decided to just do whatever she wanted in order to reduce the feeling of conflict that had so disturbed me earlier in the day. She did internal monitoring for the last half of pushing, pulled/turned my baby’s head as he crowned, and had the umbilical cord cut right away rather than waiting a few minutes for it to stop pulsating (though she did let my husband cut the cord). Again, I felt some dismay when each of these interventions happened, but consciously chose to let the annoyances slide. I just wanted to keep the peace with my midwife for the time being, figuring that was the way I could most easily focus on birthing my baby. It had taken a lot of emotional strength out of me to have earlier discussions with the midwife.

Near the time my Little Tam crowned, the midwife told me since there was meconium when my waters broke, I would not be able to hold the baby immediately if he emerged without crying. She said if he was not crying, he needed to be checked by a pediatrician right away. Again, I chose to just nod and not even discuss the issue. But I started praying fervently in my heart that the baby would come out crying loud and clear, so I would be allowed to hold him. As I pushed, I sometimes glanced at the clock and said things like, "I do not know how much longer I can keep going," because I felt such intense exhaustion. Off and on, the thought crossed my mind that if I took medication, I would be able to sleep. But I simultaneously had the thought that my baby could be born any minute, so I would just hang in there and keep going. I felt so tired, and wanted to sleep but still kept focused on my goals. We had the hypnosis script playing out loud in the room for most of the birth, and flashes of it reached me when I needed them most; statements like, "I am grateful for my caregivers." Though my eyes saw the clock, my brain never registered what time it was. Afterward, when I heard the pushing lasted 3 hours, I sincerely felt disbelief. It felt like somewhere between 15-30 minutes to me. My husband kept telling me, "with every push our baby gets a little closer!" I felt so encouraged, but a few days after the birth he told me he was lying: "Many of your pushes didn't seem to be doing anything." Haha. My sweet husband also helped by holding out a straw for me to sip drinks of juice and water in between every push.

I often made a purposeful low register groan while pushing, in order to encourage my throat/bottom track to stay open. I was very conscious and intentional throughout the entire pushing stage. Vocalizing brought me a sense of power, and again, I do not recall feeling pain at this point of the birth, though when the midwife stretched/massaged my perineum toward the end I told her, "OOOKay, now THAT hurts." It caught me by surprise.

Once my baby's head came out, the rest of his body slid quickly after. He had been holding his fist up against his head, in a superman pose, which might have been part of the reason it took so long to get him through the birth canal. My prayers that I would be able to hold him right away were answered when upon entering the world he immediately started screaming, a beautifully strong sound. I reached and pulled him up to my chest. "Baby!" My husband began weeping, and together we inspected our child, marveling at all his perfect little parts. Baby and I got to cuddle a bit with blankets over us, but it seemed like all too soon he was taken away to be checked by the pediatrician. After being checked and cleaned up a bit he was returned to me.

A few hours after his birth, the staff noticed respiratory distress and he was sent to a neighboring hospital's NICU since the birth center wasn't equipped to handle an infection like his. The next day when I discharged and joined him at that location, I was told by a doctor, "you and your baby are not a priority," because apparently Little Tam wasn't THAT sick, and the hospital was overflowing beyond capacity. But I needed help figuring out breastfeeding, and felt like even if we were all physically stable, I was mentally in need of being made a priority. So I found myself in tears, and when that doctor came back a bit later and saw me crying he asked, "what happened?" With a surge of hormonal indignation I told him, "Oh, I don't know; maybe I just had a baby?!" My husband reminded me to be polite, and a lactation consultant was soon sent our way. Breastfeeding since then has been a highlight of motherhood for me. While we at first felt discouraged that we could not take our baby home right away, it became apparent there were a lot of silver linings to us getting to stay in the hospital with him. Primarily, it gave us new parents easy access to a team of doctors and nurses who demonstrated all the tricks to caring for a newborn. By the time we came home with Little Tam a week later, we felt confident in how to care for him. Also, prior to our baby entering NICU, I had been snobbish about the use of pacifiers and bottles, figuring they were tools of the devil to thwart my efforts at breastfeeding. Now however, I realize they are great! They certainly have not hindered breastfeeding like I originally feared they might, and instead can be used to comfort Little when I am not with him.

To recap birth stats: 8 lbs. 4 oz., 21 inches, born at 6:28 AM on November 2, 2009. Including daylight savings, we were awake for over 50 hours, and labor lasted 30-something hours?

One month after the birth, we are happy and thriving. Stats from well child checkup today: 23 inches long, 11 lbs, head circumference 38 cm. He is in approx. the 75th percentile for length and weight, and the 50th percentile for head size. Proud of our beautiful boy.

Boston Birth...Day

Hee hee...Sorry to have yet another tantalizing title line. It isn't Little Tam's birthday yet, but I had mine this week, so I figured it would be ok to call this a "birth" day post. In honor of our location, I chose a Boston Creme Pie to light up instead of a regular birthday cake, and it was a delicious indulgence. Still have most of it leftover sitting in the fridge calling my name...oh dear. Also, we went to Boston Bay Pizza for dinner to continue with the Bostonian theme. This restaurant gives a whole 12" gourmet pizza FREE to the birthday guest--no purchase necessary. We loved it. It struck us that dinner that night at Boston Pizza might be our last time to eat out without having to bring along Little or schedule a babysitter...crazy to contemplate. Big life changes on the way. But we are so excited of course. I have my 40 week app't. with the midwives tomorrow. This is a bit of a rambling post...guess I'll sign off now...

Birthday Boy

Jerry had a birthday this month. Can you guess how old?

We had a group of friends from church come over to help us celebrate.
I baked the famous Hong Kong style birthday cake (and this time it even looks a little like the HK flag). It has become our birthday tradition.

We also ate some other good food.

The Amazon card didn't come in time for me to wrap any gifts from it, but luckily Jerry's work boots had arrived the day before (we're calling it his birthday gift from his employer) so we wrapped those up for him to open with surprise.

After food, presents, and visiting, we played a couple games--even indulging in Jerry's favorite, Chinese Checkers.

Lots of fun, and we are grateful to have so many friends already in our new area who could help make the party a success. Thanks for coming everybody, and Happy Birthday to Jerry!