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I ordered a new wrap for the baby. The navy blue Moby wrap is too stretchy to work for us much longer. Also, I wanted a thinner material for the warm weather that is part of living in So. California. It is made from cloth from the Czech Republic, and it is called Vatanai, and I am ordering it in the 4.5m length in the Naglikti color (blue whales and fishes pattern). It is a woven cloth, so I will be able to tie the baby onto my back and it should be easier to clean up the kitchen and cook with him back there. We shall see. ;-) At any rate, I placed my order yesterday, and the Canadian middleman said that they could get it in 1.5 weeks from Europe, so hopefully it will get here by mid January. There is a news story this morning about a tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo yesterday. One young man was killed and two others were wounded by an escaped Siberian tiger named Tatiana. One disturbing part of the story was that apparently there was nothing wrong with the door to the enc...

Here are some pics from today. Baby A is 6.5 weeks and a little over 10 pounds. His medicine made all the difference. He still coughs occasionally, but he is SO much better. And he is easier to care for; his personality improved a lot. Before he couldn't be awake without crying/nursing. Now he is content to look around at things/me. And I felt thin today in my size 6 jeans, and wanted to share. ;-)

Baby A is the sickest one now. :-( We went to the doctor again today and they gave him a script for Erythromycin. I hope this helps him. He has trouble breathing through his stuffy nose while nursing, and he tends to pop off a lot earlier than he used to. He coughs and gags, sometimes spitting up from all the coughing. The doctor said his lungs were "crackly". He has not had a fever, though, and he continues to gain weight well. He was 10 pounds today, up from 9.5 pounds last Monday. The other boys still cough, but not very often. My cough is still bringing stuff up from the left lung. I might go to the doc again this evening, depending.

Bad news and good news. The bad news is that my fever came back yesterday, I had body aches and a bad headache and not much appetite again. I even threw up a little, but I think it was from the violent coughing. Baby A threw up all over me twice yesterday. And J threw up at preschool after lunch. The good news is that I fit into my size 6 jeans this morning. I need to get a pic, but Baby A is due to wake up any moment and I don't have time right now. I ate a decent dinner last night (roast chicken, fresh green beans and Japanese sticky rice), and ate the same as leftovers for lunch. I'm also being better about staying hydrated. And my milk supply was up last night and today, so I think I must be on the upswing. My supply was probably jolted because he was on a fussy/constant nursing jag the past few days and my supply was down.

I'm in a hurry this morning. Baby A is in his car seat and starting to wake up. I'm recuperating from a fever yesterday, still coughing and sniffling. My friend called yesterday. You remember. The one who was on Harvard Law Review with Barak Obama. DS-17 asked what that was and I said it was a prestigious school newspaper. ;-) Her news is lately she has been doing a lot of speaking engagements around the Los Angeles area. When organizations call up wanting Senator Obama or his wife to speak, they are often not available, as they are in Iowa or some such place. So they offer one of his old law school buddies to talk instead. And that is what she has been doing. She will get 2 days off for Christmas, then she has been asked to go to Iowa for 10 days and help campaign over there. I can't wait to hear how that goes. BTW, everybody else in the family is sick. The baby least so, thankfully. Good thing I am breastfeeding. It was REALLY hard to take care of him yester...

The biggest shock came this morning. I woke up at 7am, realizing that I had just slept another 5 hour stretch. Baby A slept 5 hours, fed, then slept another 5 hours. The most he had slept before this had been 4 hours then 3 hours then 2 then 1, 1, 1. I was so much more rested this morning. The really surprising thing was that we had gone out last night to the Hanukkah party at the local synagogue and he had slept for 2 hours in the Moby wrap. I thought that was great, but I was going to be in for a busy night since he slept so well just prior to bedtime. The party turned out to be fun. We lit this giant menorah that is on a main street near me. The kids got "gelt", which was actually real money. A lizard man came to entertain the kids with a presentation of lizards and snakes. And there was a little video of the story of Hanukkah for the children. And there was food. The best part was seeing a wonderful group of the kindest people you could ever imagine. This is...

In the top picture, he is sleeping in his bassinet. Note the white blanket. I crocheted that myself over these past months. I did not put a border on it, as I ran out of time when he came 3 weeks early. I used a shell and cluster pattern. The lower pic shows him in the Moby Wrap. He is really getting bigger now, he is about 9.5 pounds. That is 50% bigger than when he was born.

I have a theory. Babies deprived of love/cuddling early in life can develop major personality faults. The reason I mention this is that there was another shooting yesterday. A 19-y-o boy shot a bunch of people in a mall in Omaha yesterday and then shot himself. He left a note saying he wanted to go out in style. Anybody who decides to kill innocent strangers is someone with no feelings of empathy. I think the term for that type of person is a sociopath. How does a boy get to that state? I bet he had a bad relationship with his parents. I am not saying parents take the blame for everything. I am sure there are organic problems in the brain that can cause people to "go off". But my point is that hurting a baby early in life leaves a scar so deep that it can't be healed. Babies left to cry unattended learn not to trust the world. They learn that the world is a cold, uncaring place. Wouldn't this person be more likely to grow up angry and violent than a baby...

I don't know if you remember that I complained that the kids gave me a cold when I came home from the hospital with the baby? I was never able to throw it off, and in the last 2 weeks things got worse and worse. I was coughing all the time. Poor little A would be sleeping on my chest and he had to deal with me going through loud coughing spasms right by his ear. I was hoping to avoid antibiotics because I really did *not* want to have thrush this time, like I had with my last 2 kids. There is no good treatment for thrush that I know of, or at least none that worked for me. So I complained to my OB yesterday and they had me come in so they could listen to my lungs and stuff. I obtained a prescription for a Z-pack and took the first 2 pills yesterday afternoon. This morning when I woke up it was like a miracle had occurred. I felt 75% better. Yay! And my sore left breast is suddenly better, too. I must have had a low level of mastitis in the duct sinuses behind the nipple...

I'm still learning about nursing and taking care of babies too. Yes. After 6 babies and 19 years. Here is my newest stuff. The picture above shows me trying to perfect my use of the Maya Wrap. I have been going onto the website called TheBabyWearer.com to find more creative ways to use the baby carriers I already have. Little A loves to be carried, so he seems to appreciate it. At least he cries a lot less than when he is put down between feedings. I read that it is best to keep the baby as high up as possible, and the rings as high up without them being directly on the shoulder. I must be doing something right, because I was never able, with any of my prior kids, to get them in the upright position in a ring sling. Little A loves being upright and he settles down so nicely whenever I am able to do it, so it is worth the effort for me. And it is easier on my back/shoulders. This is an old-style Maya wrap. No padding. But it works great and I feel so frugal using the sa...