Winterlude

Daniel, Joaquin and I traveled to Daniel's hometown of Ottawa, Canada. Ottawa is the little known capital of Canadia. Also little known is that Ottawa has the world's largest ice skating rink. The Rideau canal tranforms in the frozen winter into a 5 mile (8K) long skating surface. For two weeks in February, Ottawa hosts Winterlude. The canal is at its finest with fresh ice surfaces and little wooden houses on the ice that serve hot cocoa and coffee along with Canadian specialties.

We planned our trip especially to coincide with Winterlude as one of my favorite things to do in Ottawa is ice skate. Skating is such a treat for a California girl like me. Balancing on a thin metal blade and gliding at high speeds across a frozen surface is downright magical. Plus the canal skating special treats include eating poutine on ice skates, beavertails, and maple taffy which is way better than it sounds. I had to be talked into the maple taffy and I am so glad I was. This treat looks like a lollipop but is really thickened maple syrup poured directly onto snow where it freezes into a perfect consistancy between solid and chewy. Yum.

We arrived on Thursday morning after a night flight. Baby J was a great traveler- he slept as much as possible with our three connection jaunt. By Friday we were out on the canal skating with Daniel's father, David Sherwood. Joaquin, who suffers from strolleritis, loved being towed along in a little sled.

Joaquin was chillin'.

Daniel, Joaquin and I stayed most of the week with Daniel's brother Erik and his family. Joaquin definitely was entertained by the antics of his nine and three year-old cousins.

Daniel's family was so welcoming. I felt a new kinship of fellow parenthood with Erik and his wife Caroline as take my own babysteps into mamahood.

I am adding a bunch of Sherwood family photos with the baby to the flicker slideshow in the right hand side bar.
After a week in Canada, we were wishing we had planned a longer stay but we were scheduled to take the train from Montreal to New York to visit my family in New York and Connecticut. More news to come.

Unhinged

A lot has been said about parenthood. For me on the threshold of parenting I am undergoing a removal of layers. Like a front door being re-furbished, some layers are dissolved with a solvent others are scraped.

The Last Four Days
Over the last four days Joaquin's moods have swung wildly. From a newfound content to full throttle screaming within an hour. Just yesterday, he sat placidly on his own in a bouncer chair as I cooked french toast, brewed coffee for Daniel and cleaned up last night's dishes, a first. What followed was a five alarm crying fit for no apparent reason. Joaquin was freshly diapered, nursed, napped. Check. Yet in a fit. Later in the afternoon upon waking, nursing and crying in the San Francisco U.S. passport office, a visit to the fountains of Yerba Buena Gardens found Joaquin waving his hands and feet in the air.

Today, after four days of such behavior I reached the end of my sanity. The baby screamed in the morning. I left him with Daniel as I headed to a chiropractic appointment. When I returned, Joaquin was nestled into a sling on Daniel shoulder asleep for a two hour nap. He woke, played, and sat by himself again as I dug and planted iris bulbs in the backyard. Almost immediately, the full throttle screaming began again.

Joaquin's fussiness and crying began to get to me. I reached out to another mother I know. "He won't ride in a stoller, he hates the carseat, he only likes one particular carrier, he fusses", I griped. My friend Elizabeth offered to give Joaquin a ride in an umbrella stroller that her previously reluctant baby had taken to at the age of 3 months. We planned a walk at three.

The visit to Elizabeth went like this: fussy tired baby is put in BabyBjorn carrier (which he barely tolerates), baby grudging sleeps the mile walk over, wakes, rides in umbrella stroller briefly, fusses, get fussier, won't/can't nurse, turns to full blown rage, ends visit. I have to leave Elizabeth's with a screaming baby. She is apologizing to me.

Now I am completely demoralized. I am wishing I had gotten a border collie instead of this baby. I want to be enjoying myself. This is supposed to be fun. I am eating so carefully, yet still the milk causes Joaquin to twist and torque in pain. I watch Joaquin pull away from my breast and cry from hunger. That's it- I am giving him formula. I am trying so hard to avoid foods that make him squirm and scream.

On the walk home Joaquin now in his favorite mei tei carrier settles right to sleep. Once home he nurses as if there have not been two, three attempts to give him the milk he screamed for. I abandon this baby on the couch to Daniel's care. Daniel places the satiated baby in a bouncer where he sits silently while Daniel prepares dinner. I fume. I am so upset I cannot eat.

After dinner we decide to try the 'Baby Brigade' movie at the El Cerrito Speakeasy. I am no longer angry. Baby nurses easily and rides peacefully in the car as I sing favorite songs to him. Once in the theater he nurses to sleep.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.

I am stripped raw by emotion. I am a person who does not fall apart in front of others. I keep my cool. I don't let the dangling grey matter show. Yet Joaquin who is an extension of me like a new organ I have grown, melts down wherever he sees fit. It forces me to reconsider how I interact with the world. How I choose to present myself and hope to be perceived.

Joy gives to frustration, rage to content. The triggers I believed I knew about myself, the inner balance I maintain break apart as the layers that formed my exterior collapse when the underlying structures are unhinged.

After birth, I felt fresh scrubbed and raw like my spirit born anew and washed clean. Today I feel raw with my eyes wide open and nostrils flaring stinging from the sensation of life.

looking like an angel

Fishes

Baby Joaquin is completely taken with a fish mobile that hangs above his changing table. He smiles everytime he sees the fish or poisson as we call them. He smiles at the fish more than at Daniel and I combined. He coos to the little fishies like they share a secret language.
I wonder what it is about this particular mobile. It may have to do the location. The changing table is next to a south facing window. Moreso however, is the fact that Joaquin also love to have his diaper changed. Loves it. In the midst of a fit, if I take off his diaper he starts to coo. I guess I am lucky to have a baby that is happy to have his diaper changed. Especially as one of his nicknames is 'The Poopster".

Milk- cow, human and otherwise

With a new baby, a lot of thought is about milk. Milkies. On one hand, I have been very lucky and breastfeeding Joaquin started smooth and continues to be delightful. He demonstrated his excellent nursing ability when he latched on and started drinking from my right breast at age 45 minutes. Funny thing is the right side continues to be his favorite. He likes to nurse from only the right when he is feeling particularly out of sorts. And out of sorts he was for several weeks because Joaquin is quasi-allergic, more accurately sensitive, to cow's milk protein in breast milk.

How did I know? After a few weeks of life, Joaquin proved himself to be a tremendous spitter. He spit up milk on my shirt. He spit up milk in my bed. He barfed curdled milk onto the sofa. He barfed on to my future sister-in-law's sweater. He was a fountain of aged milk. His sleepers were saturated daily and he reeked of old milk, hence the cat stalking. But spitting up is normal if a baby is gaining weight. And Joaquin AKA Biggie is no peanut. As Dr. Sears says "you have a laundry problem, not a spit-up problem".

However, placid Joaquin started to cry and fuss while nursing. He wasn't enjoying feedings but crying through and right after them. This was a bit confused with him arriving at 7 weeks when babies are known to be at peak fussiness. A few internet searches all turned over the same thing- spit-up is gastrointestinal reflux. The valve between the esophagus and the stomach that keeps stomach contents where they belong is immature in infants. However a known culprit of aggravating reflux in infants is cow milk protein in human breastmilk.

I don't drink milk, it makes my stomach hurt. But I do love ice cream and, as a vegetarian, cheese is a big part of my diet. The connection between Joaquin's spitting up and my milk consumption became clear after a projectile vomit spewed like a geyser from the baby following a very large vanilla milkshake. It took me another few weeks, another few incidents of barf and hard crying to really give all milk products up. Our former pediatrician at Kaiser prescribed Zantac to reduce Joaquin's stomach acid and reduce the burning that is the cause of the crying. Daniel filled the prescription but after getting home, we decided I should try a strict no dairy diet first.
The no dairy diet is working. Joaquin no longer spits up. Lots of drool and spit, yes but bellyfulls of digested milk, no.
Milk, human, cow and otherwise get a lot of thought around here. Only Joaquin is getting any at the moment. I am surviving on eggs, smoked peppercorn salmon, avocados and Coconut Bliss ice cream. The difference in Joaquin is worth it. The joy of breastfeeding is way diminished when my sweet little boy cries through it. Most babies outgrow this sensitivity between 6 months and 2 years.

10 Weeks

This blog needed a good picture of baby Joaquin at 10 weeks.

Tio Quito

My brother and first friend, Quito (also known by his name Carlos) and his fiance Andria came to visit after Christmas. They stayed for 10 days, mostly at a sweet housesit offered by the Fingermans plus a few nights at our place. Its been a long time since Quito has visited me in Berkeley, I had forgotten how fun it is for us to be two sibs laughing it up, away from the influence of our parents.

Susie calls Joaquin Joaquito. So he's a nicknamesake for Quito. It makes sense as Joaquito is the first boy in my family in 33 years.

Joaquin was very cranky the week Quito was here. I was kind of sad about that because I wanted Quito to see him at his best. But he's a real little baby, not some character in a fictional blog.

Adventures in Yosemite

We just returned from a short getaway to Yosemite. Our first family vacation. It took several days of combined Daniel and Claudia brainpower to decide where to go. Granted our brainpower is diminished from 8 weeks of limited sleeping. I like getaways that include an outdoor adventure- cycling, bouldering, all day hiking. These activities don't really mesh well with an infant. What could I do with an infant that would be fun for me? A friend recommended cross country skiing on a flat groomed track. Since Joaquin loves to be worn in a baby carrier and Yosemite is beautiful and has lots of cross country ski ing near Wawona, at the south entrance.

After serious consideration winter camping was out, including the heated platform tents at Curry Village. So we decided to spend our vacation kitty on the Tenaya Lodge. Reviews read that the Tenaya Lodge is family friendly and comfortable.

We headed east to the mountains on Sunday as the rest of the Bay Area was driving back to start a new year of school and work. I was unsure of how the baby would like the drive. We have a plug-in electric Toyota Prius hybrid and the extra quiet drive lacks the baby lulling element. But Baby J was a great passenger, he slept, he cooed at his crinkly frog and he enjoyed our two pitstops at roadside Starbucks.

Our hotel room was a pleasant surprise. Luxury by my standards. Oh, the california-king sized bed! Joaquin sleeps with Daniel and I so the extra mattress space was phenomenal. Check out baby J on the big bed.

So Monday morning, we got a late start and headed out to Badger Pass to do some snowshoeing. Cross country skiing was determined too ambitious for our first snow outing with baby. A light snow was falling. We opted for a short 3 mile walk to the Badger Pass overlook where the weather obscured all views.

Joaquin was snuggled in a snow suit inside a front chest carrier and covered with a down jacket so he slept peacefully through the whole hike.
After the hike, we decided to make the hour drive to Yosemite Valley to see the grandeous sights.

Here is our family at Yosemite Falls.


On Tuesday, the sun was shining making the snow glitter all around. We drove the few miles to the park's south entrance and parked at the beginning of the two mile road to the famous Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias. In the winter the road to the grove is not plowed so to visit the grove you have to walk up the gentle grade.

Snow cave on the road to the grove

As always giant sequioas astound me. Sequoias are a marvel of the world. They are named redwoods for their cinnamon colored bark. Somehow, that cinnamon bark seems to radiant light and each giant sequioa looks as if it is pertually framed in a beam of sunshine. The other species of tree literally pale in comparison.

Also sweet was the juxtaposition of our bitty baby and the giant, ancient trees.

Joaquin cozy in a snowsuit from Grandma Susie.

The getaway was a long time coming. Something I have wanted to do since I had to cancel my week of Burning Man partying in the desert due to pregnancy. Honestly, I gave attending Burning Man 7 and a half months pregnant serious thought. I would take good care of myself, go to bed early, sleep in a RV. But then I considered the odor of the port-a-potties and realized I would never make it through one day. A snow trip to Yosemite with luxe accommodations and my new family was a nice treat. I definitely appreciated the clean mountain air.