Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from Santa and his Elf!

Happy holidays to you and yours! 

I'm very excited about the holiday season with our bambino. While I could make myself quite anxious planning his first Christmas and the traditions we are creating for him, I'm trying to just enjoy our time together. After all, we are still establishing sleeping routines and are at the beginning of many new things together. 

I'm also attempting to put aside my computer/phone/camera a little every day - and every event - to really enjoy my time there and be present with those I love. There are the photographic and written records, but there are also the memories. The memories I can relive as I am falling asleep or starting a new poem and will share later with our bambino.

See you back here in 2014!

What are your favorite holiday traditions? 

After Swaddling: Halo SleepSack Wearable Blanket

Tummy time, Good Night Moon and getting ready for bed in a 

Halo SleepSack Wearable Blanket

The Halo SleepSack Wearable Blanket solves the problem of keeping your baby warm without the dangers of a blanket. A loose blanket, or anything in the crib including a bumper, can increase the chance of SIDS because an infant might suffocate. To keep our newborn safe - and well-rested - we followed Dr. Karp's Happiest Baby on the Block suggestions. His Huffington Post piece here explains the process well.

Around three or four months, our bambino was able to roll onto his stomach (but not back again) and we stopped swaddling him. He still, however had (and has) limited controlled neck and limb control, so a blanket still isn't safe. We moved from the SleepSack Swaddle to the SleepSack Wearable Blanket.

With a onesie underneath the wearable blanket, our bambino, who is now six months old, sleeps (mostly) through the night. And so can we, since we don't have to worry about fabric. He can roll over - there's plenty of space for his legs to move inside the bag - and his arms are free.

We're smitten with this cotton one with an elephant on the front. He seems to like it, too. When we change his clothes and put on the wearable blanket, he knows that it is time to sleep. It is a part of our evening routine, before I read a book to him in Italian and my husband reads a book in English. We all snuggle together on the bed and then transfer him to the crib to fall asleep on his own. (Well, we're still working on the last part.)

Click through for more about the Halo SleepSack sleep initiative in a recent post I wrote about infant swaddling. 

One Bambino-Bear and His First Snow

Ok, so after living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, yesterday's Washington, D.C., snow might barely qualify as snow. Still, it was our bambino's first sight of it. And this morning, he raised his eyebrows at his first sight of icicles on the branches outside the window.

Dressed up like a teddy bear and squinting in the bright cold, he was mostly nonplussed yesterday. I held up a little snow that had fallen on a leaf for him to touch. As you might have guessed, he didn't like it. We took some pictures and quickly went back inside to warm up. Hot cider for us and some apples and oatmeal cereal for him. 

I love watching our bambino notice and explore this brand new world. I'm constantly reminded that every. single. thing. is brand new to him. And, happily, it starts to become (at least) a little new to me, too. Today on my writing coach blog, I wrote a little about how his explorations are a good reminder that writing should offer the same discovery. 

Nom, Nom, Nom: Starting Solids

 

Starting solids is messy and time consuming. And I love it.

I love our bambino's surprise at new tastes and the way he negotiates his lips and tongue to try to keep the food in his mouth. We make each other laugh, which often ends up with food sprayed everywhere, but that only makes us laugh more. Yes, sneezing with a mouthful of food did provide the biggest laugh and mess.

Sitting in front of our our bambino in a Bumpo on the floor, I feed him with an infant spoon from a little plastic bowl suction-cupped to the tray. An easy to clean plastic bib and lots of paper towels, dry and wet, keep us both mostly clean. We might have succeeded avoiding a lot of baby-products, but these have all proven really helpful. Sometimes he assists me (with limited success) to guide the spoon into his mouth and then use the rubber end to massage his gums. He is able to hold onto my pinky if I extend it while holding the spoon. He definitely tries to pull the bowl off of the tray, but the suction - amazingly - keeps the food (generally) safe. Pretty soon he'll be big enough for the high chair and a larger tray for everything.

I didn't immediately start with fresh foods. Sure, that was my goal, but after starting with the fortified, dry rice cereal, I guessed (correctly) that his first bites of fruits and vegetables would be very small. I didn't have the time or the patience to puree teeny, tiny amounts. I started with prepared containers of bananas, carrots and apples. His pediatrician suggested trying one food for a few days (not more than two new foods a week) in order to best catch any possible allergies. We started with rice cereal around five months and have been adding in bananas, carrots and apples.

Yesterday, for the first time, he ate fresh food: half a pureed avocado mixed with formula. Nope, not appetizing to me, but he seemed to enjoy it. That is, he seemed to enjoy it after scrunching up his face every which way as he tested out this new flavor.

I'm really looking forward to cooking various foods for him and eventually with him. I like to cook, even if I haven't had time to blog about it since the bambino was born. I'll see if I can't cook foods that we can all eat, putting some aside for him to puree for him before flavoring the grownups. I'm also hoping to freeze portions for him for the future. We'll see how this all works out as the work piles up at the end of the semester, but I'm optimistic.

The Mayo Clinic's website offers clear advice about starting solids. WebMD offers tips on preparing baby food and what foods are appropriate for each stage. What has worked well for you and your child?

Finding Childcare: Reliable? Heartbreaking?

Being a working mom means needing affordable, trustworthy childcare. And that's not easy.

Since I mostly teach online and both my husband I have a flexible, academic schedule (some days, at least), we were able to get through the summer and this semester with an occasional p/t babysitter. Next semester, my husband will be on family leave and he will be the primary care giver. Still, we will need some help here and there.

We searched for sitters on care.com, sittercity.com and local list serves (neighborhood, family and alum lists.) We tried asking friends, but got very few recommendations. Clearly a good sitter is hard to find and families are reluctant to "give away" their sitters. We've tried to buck this trend by recommending ours and hope the good karma returns to us when we need to find someone in the future. (I'll let you know if that works out.)

We met some real doozies - one woman said goodbye to our bambino by knocking his bare arm with her keys and another yawned throughout the whole interview. We also found a few kind women with excellent experience who we really like.

Care.com offers possible background checks and personal information. To be extra safe, we've photocopied government-issued identification for folks we found elsewhere. Care.com also has a good list of questions to ask a sitter, what information and items to leave, and how to best show a sitter around your home. At first, I was taken by women who were native Italian speakers, but had little infant experience, or who seemed like they could be friends. Of course, their experience with soothing, playing, feeding and teaching babies new skills are more important.

It took us almost five months to feel comfortable leaving our bambino alone with someone who wasn't a close relation or friend. Usually, I would work from home in another room while the sitter takes care of our bambino. This means that I wanted to find someone I felt comfortable spending a lot of time with, too. Of course, if I'm not comfortable, why should my baby be?

It was - and is - incredibly hard to hear him cry with someone else and not comfort him. It was - and is - incredibly hard to hear him laugh and not run into his room to join in the fun. The range of emotions is exhausting and not always conducive to working. Still, I've been able to keep up with my teaching and some writing. It has also been comforting to be home to hear the sitter interact with our son and to offer some suggestions, when necessary, as they get to know each other. It has been hard at times to not only share my baby, but also our entire apartment as they move from room to room.

Of course, a sort of Murphy's Law holds true that a baby who won't nap all morning will go down for a sitter as soon as she arrives and wake just as she's about to leave. Money well-spent, right? Theoretically, I can work without having to keep an ear out for my son. Of course, I usually do keep listening and can't avoid hearing him, but I can attempt to relax knowing someone else is responsible for him.

I've started to leave the house to work elsewhere and trust that our son will be ok with our chosen sitters. The other day, I even suggested that the two of them take a stroller-walk. That walk marked the first time I'd been alone at home since mid-May. It both feels good - and productive or relaxing - to be alone, but also alarming when I suddenly don't hear or see my baby close to me. I imagine these emotions will continue for a long while.

Infant childcare costs are astronomical (there are full-time places we visited close to home in Washington, D.C., that cost around $2,000 a month. A month!) Waiting lists sometimes open years after parents joined them. Some centers allow families to put down a deposit and join a waiting list as soon as the mother finds out she's pregnant; others ask for the baby's birth date. Childcare is clearly something to think ahead about.

What tips do you have for finding good childcare?

In Sickness and in Health: Parenthood

Parenthood includes making hard decisions. The bambino and I, with help from the nonna, drove up to New Jersey recently for a short visit. And then the bambino, who already had a little cough, and I developed full blown colds. The yucky, noisy, hard-to-sleep kind.

I was very sorry to have to cancel a reading and an intimate gathering with friends and family. After all, we'd been planning the visit forever and were looking forward to, well, everything. We're finally starting to feel better, after a few visits to the doctor here and in N.J., and lots of (mostly attempted) rest.

I don't know how folks balance it all. Some days it seems quite simple and other days I wonder if I'll have time to eat dinner, let alone spend quality time with my son, attend to my classes and continue to write.

Today the weather is warm - high 60's in D.C. - and the windows are open. Starting to feel hopeful again.

I'll feel more hopeful when I'm caught up on work. See you next week!

Emily Nichols Grossi on Blogging, Motherhood & Food

Thank you to Emily Nichols Grossi for today’s post about writing regularly as a mother. Emily was a student in a recent memoir writing workshop I taught at Politics & Prose bookstore. I was struck by her attention to sensory details and enthusiasm. I’m excited to have the opportunity to share her thoughts with you today.

Emily Nichols Grossi is a Louisiana native who has happily called DC her home since 2007. A stay-at-home mother of two young sons, Emily also writes the blog, Em-i-lis,, teaches canning and preservation classes throughout the DC-area, runs Em-i-lis Catering, is an avid school volunteer and is working on a memoir.

Blogging, Motherhood & Food by Emily Nichols Grossi

It began over shallow bowls of steaming pasta tossed with wilted greens and mascarpone.

Actually, it was born months earlier when I told my friend, Shawn, how I'd informed the manager at Jack Falstaff's, a now-shuttered restaurant in San Francisco, that his crab cakes were utterly sub-par. "Shawn, never waste a dining experience by going to Falstaff's!" I implored. He laughed so hard I thought hyperventilation was nigh, and after recovering he told me for the umpteenth time that I simply must write about food. "Doll, you talk about food with such gravitas, like it's the most important thing in the world."

"How can I do this?" I asked my husband, Tom, as we grated cheese over our bowls of glistening pasta. My youngest son was about to turn two, and I craved an intellectual endeavor to enliven my days. I was happy as a stay-at-home mother but desperately wanted to carve out time to pursue the interests I'd put on hold. Tom suggested blogging.

I was a blog virgin at that point but quickly realized that it would be a terrifically workable format for me: short posts written when I had time. I decided early on that authenticity would be my mantra.  As such, I am frank and share my successes as well as my mishaps. I often write about all things food-related, but as the boys grow, I find myself writing more and more about motherhood too. My byline says it all: musings from a servantless, stay-at-home, cooking-obsessed mom.

Since I started Em-i-lis almost three years ago, I've managed to work lots of writing into stolen moments in and around naptimes, school drop-offs and pick-ups, trips to the pediatrician, potty training and playdates. I am proud to have written every day but three and have felt enormously fulfilled in doing so.

People often ask me why I write so regularly and with such candor. I wouldn't make the time if I didn't love it, didn't feel I simply must get X, Y or Z down in words. Certainly, the love of the craft is part of the why. But I've also found that there is something profoundly illuminative about committing words to page.

Through Em-i-lis, I have come to know myself much more thoroughly. I have found a confidence and a voice and a sense-of-self I'd long sought. I have recorded innumerable, quotidian details of my sons' lives that otherwise I would surely have forgotten. I have become a really good cook. I have met and reconnected with incredible people, and I have realized how honesty and openness can forge the most wonderful ties with them.

Be sure to click through to visit Em-i-lis!