Time Just Flies - Recapping the Holidays

There is so much to write about and so little time to do it.  In the meantime our baby is rapidly turning into a toddler.

First of all I have been meaning to recap the holidays--they were great. All three of them!  (Hanukkah, Christmas and New Years).  We lit candles for Hanukkah every day--a first for us.  Of course Nat will not remember any of it, but it still felt nice to do.

Our Christmas might have been a little frenzied, but we hit all the "essentials": family (one of the bigger turn outs this year), rolls, Christmas jello, sugar high, interesting cocktails (ok, Nat might have skipped those last two...).  

Clearly Walla Walla deserves a lot more coverage than just one sentence.  In contrast, there is not much to say about our New Years celebration--just us at home, with a little bit of cake, strawberries and champagne.  

Of course there was also Nat's first airplane ride, and he was a trooper.  He fussed a bit, but not unreasonably.  During take off and landing, he fell asleep instead of screaming.  

Unfortunately, our car ride to and from Walla Walla, which is only marginally shorter than the plane ride, was not nearly as pleasant.  Nat hardly slept, and screamed bloody murder for over an hour each way.  The short periods of time he did not scream were all due to Aunt Brooke's creative entertainment.  (Thanks, Brooke!)

In addition to meeting a lot of family for the first time over the holidays, Nat also got to spend quality time with several dogs.  Being a very small animal himself, he was cautious at first.  While Mojo, the energetic pug, scared Nat out of his high chair for good, Roo, the super mellow Newfoundland mix was the favorite despite his enormous size.  After a couple of days in the same house, Nat chased Roo with happy squeals.  He also maintained what he must have deemed a safe distance of about a foot when the dog was facing him, and promptly "ran" away with similarly loud squeals if Roo moved towards him. 

Now over a month has passed.  While Nick and I have barely had time to recover from the holidays, Nat grew two more teeth, started walking on his own, and stopped being a vegetarian.  He is still attracted to kitchen cabinets, but has discovered how to open and close the bedroom door, and grew absolutely obsessed with lifting the flaps in his Toes, Ears and Nose! book.

Donating Bone Marrow

Five years ago I registered with the National Marrow Donor Program.  It is notoriously difficult to find a match for someone needing a bone marrow transplant, and I wanted to help.  At the same time, because it is so difficult to find a match, I did not really expect to ever be contacted. 

So you can imagine my shock when last October I received an email informing me that I was a possible match.  I followed the instructions and got in touch with the people in the donor program.  I had to make some difficult choices.  For a variety of reasons the program provided me, the perspective donor, with limited information while asking me to make an unconditional go/no-go decision upfront. 

For example, there are multiple methods for extracting bone marrow.  The least invasive and the most common one used currently requires the donor to take medication for at least a week.  For a breastfeeding mother like me, 7 days of medication implied 7 days of pumping and dumping, while my baby ate frozen breastmilk or formula.  I knew my baby would be in no danger of malnutrition, but I worried that he would inadvertently be weaned by the time I was ready to breastfeed him again. 

Many questions whirled around my mind.  Who is more important to me, my baby or a leukemia patient I have never met?  Can I compare the benefits of breastfeeding to an attempt to give someone another chance to live?  Can I subject my family to the extra work that will result from my pumping around the clock, having to feed the baby from the bottle around the clock, not to mention dealing with me potentially feeling weak and/or sick from the medication and the donation itself? 

Feeling overwhelmed, I called my very good friend whose brother has now been cancer free for two years after having a bone marrow transplant.  Talking to her made the decision easy.  I never wanted to wonder whether someone could have lived but died because I was worried that my baby might wean too early.  I never wanted to wonder if parents lost their child because I was worried about the possibility of having to feed formula instead of breastmilk to my baby.  I never wanted to wonder if children lost their parent because I was worried about having to do more work while feeling tired.  My concerns fizzled away in comparison to losing someone who could have lived.

So I agreed to proceed.

As it turns out, my bone marrow was not needed this time around.  Perhaps a better match was found, or the patient decided against the procedure, or the doctors decided against the procedure for this patient.  I will never know what really happened, but I am glad that I will never have to think back to this episode in my life and wonder "what if..."

Our First Sensory Bag

Since I never have enough time to write for the blog, I thought I would try a more visual approach.

Here is what I did last night after putting the baby to bed, baking some shortbread and making my lunch for the next day.

Later Edit: This is NOT blood (Это НЕ кровь.)  This is food coloring!

This is our first "sensory bag", something I came across on the internet (where else).  This taped Ziploc bag contains baby oil, water and food coloring.  It is squishy. The color blobs change shape.  It is supposed to be a great thing for the baby to explore.  Nat liked it, but I think I was more excited about it than he was.

Mid Year Review

Nick said that if he were to give Nat his midyear review, the term normally used in the corporate environment to refer to a checkpoint in one's performance about 6 months into the year, he would emphasize that Nat could improve his sleeping habits.  Natty has gotten better at taking naps during the day, but is now more reluctant to go to sleep at 8pm and is starting to get into the habit of calling out to us around 5am. 

Exactly 6 months

But like in any excellent review, Natty's strengths and accomplishments overshadow his areas in need of improvement.

• Natty successfully crawls backwards, which turns out to be an excellent way to escape under the sofa.  He really wants to crawl forward, but cannot quite do it yet.  Presented with an especially desirable object (e.g. a laptop) he will resort to throwing himself forward.
• Natty rotates about on his stomach very well, which allows him to cover a significant amount of floor space.
• Natty wants to stand as much as possible.  He particularly likes to stand holding on to his gym.  Turning on the silly gym music is an extra bonus.
• Natty wants to feel everything.  In the last several days he has been running his fingers (opening and closing his fist) over every surface he can get his hands on.  Any slight delay on our part to cut his nails means that this exercise produces horrible noise.  And oh how fast those little nails grow!
• Natty likes to suck on his left hand thumb, which strengthens Nick's hopes that his son is a lefty.
• When Natty gets his hands on his "weight" toy, he shakes it really hard--as hard as if he were wielding a weapon of a deadly force.  He does not do it with other toys.
• On the day he turned 6 months, Natty started forming a "фига" with his right hand.  He stares at his hand as he's working his fingers into it, and sometimes proudly shows it to us. 

The changes that Nat has been going through in the last 6 months are tremendous, and I will never be able to list them all here.  The changes that I detect in my own behavior are much more subtle. 

I wish I could say that having the baby has made me do everything faster.  No, I am still as slow as ever.  (I tell Natty that turtles and snails are slow because they carry their houses with them.  I don't have such an excellent excuse.)  Yet I am definitely much more efficient.

The short intervals of time available for my personal use now appear very differently.  A span of 15 minutes in my "pre-motherhood" life seemed too short to do anything useful.  Now it seems like an eternity--I can chop vegetables to prep for dinner, mix the dry ingredients for the next cake to bake, pre-wash soiled clothes or sort the clean laundry, pack lunch for my next work day, precut fabric for my next sewing project or put a seam in into my current one.  And the list goes on. 

I am not nearly as nervous speaking in front of large groups of people.  This phenomenon actually started back when I was still pregnant.  Perhaps it is more a function of hormonal changes as opposed to a shift in my thought process, but I hope it is more permanent.

On the negative side, I worry that every time I slip the schedule at work, people assume that with an infant at home I am not working as hard.  While I am not spending as many hours in the office, I actually feel that I am working harder than ever.  So I try to attribute these worries to my paranoia. 

Having a baby also affected the way I look at mothers with newborn babies and pregnant women.  I am sure as Nat grows older, my reactions will continue to evolve, but for now I feel the mystery and the wonder that they are about to experience.  It is hard to describe the emotion.  The only remotely comparable feeling would be seeing someone reading a book that I love for the first time. 

Vladimir Visotsky said it really well in his song "Вершина":

            Весь мир на ладони,

            Я счастлив и нем,

            И только немного завидую тем
            Другим у которых вершина еще впереди.

New Dishes

Last week Nick mentioned something about how it would be nice to have more than 4 dinner plates for every day use because we are constantly running out.  A week and $60 later, we are no longer short on plates.

Growth Spurt?

From this

to this

in just 5 months!  That is some growth spurt!

Online Shopping For Refrigerators

Have you ever tried shopping for refrigerators online?  This is what it looks like:

This is a screen shot of my attempt to browse refrigerators on Sears.com

Do you see a problem with this picture?!  Which one do I click on?  They all look the same!  Not only that, but they are all called the same too:  "  Top Freezer Refrigerator".  I hope no one seriously expects me to click through all 34 of these ("only" 34, after I have narrowed down the choice based on size, volume and color).