Perfectly Joaquin

Who is Joaquin Rafael Eyzaguirre Sherwood? No one knows yet. Perhaps I see a glimmer of his future personality. For example, he is very focused on his task at hand, most often chewing his hand. And the world around him doesn't matter. He hardly flinches at a door slammed, doesn't mind sunlight in his eyes and can sleep through live rock bands. In that way he reminds me of Daniel. Daniel can productivity design solar power arrays at the dining room table while Joaquin and I sing and dance around the room. He just tunes us out. He also seems pleased with himself when he accomplishes a little goal. Like pulling a felt monkey off his playmat or rolling from tummy to back. Those are only guesses. We'll see. Daniel wonders if he'll be opinionated like me.

Last week I learned that I must work on recognizing that Joaquin is who he is. To be honest to myself, I have been a little disappointed that Joaquin is not a placid, observant baby. As I read in the Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg "During nine months of pregnancy, virtually all parents come to have an image of the baby they're expecting... This is especially true of older mums and dads who ... have waited to their thirities or forties to start a family". I thought if I meet Joaquin's needs- which I am proud to say I do well- then he would just be a quiet, cute observer that I tote along to the pleasant rhythm of my childless days. Hogg writes about this too: "successful women who leave thriving careers to become mothers... think that you can impose your management skills onto your baby, and you may be surprised, dissappointed, or angry when your infant doesn't cooperate. You're having a moment of denial, luv, believing that life with Baby will continue to be just as it was before he arrived." Okay I am not alone.

In real life, Joaquin is an active little boy. He is always trying to do something. Grab for a toy, chew his fingers, stand in my lap, rub his face for a nap. He's all snips and snails and puppy dog tails. That's what little boys are made of. And he is so cute doing it all. He is a wonderful baby. A sleeper any parent would dream of- he goes for naps like a family dog and knows that the dark if for sleeping. So I have decided that I must recognize that he is and will always be prefectly Joaquin and I am going to love and set my expectations appropriately for that. Because what a lame parent I would be if I set my expectations for a baby that never fussed, went along with all my wants and when he didn't cooperate, I called that failure. Yes, let's try to nip that in bud in Joaquin's infancy.

But I will also confess before I came to this Zen moment, I took the quiz in the Hogg book for what kind of baby do I have. I made Daniel take it too for a more objective opinion. (HA!) I was so worried that I would have the Grumpy or Touchy baby. But Joaquin turns out not to be an Angel baby, no shock there. He is a Textbook baby with a few characteristics of the Spirited baby and a few of the Angel. Whew.

Joaquin Rolls Over

Joaquin will be 4 months old next week. Today he rolled over for the first time. I thought he would roll from back to tummy as he has been rolling onto his side for several weeks now. However today when I placed him on his playmat, he pushed himself up into a mini-push. This is the classic cute baby pose.

Then he pushed off a bit with his feet and as his head is so heavy (his head was in the 85% for size at his two month check-up), he rolled right over onto his tummy.
He played for several more hours on his playmat this afternoon but has yet to repeat his new trick.

The other baby news is that he now happily sleeps in a portable crib at the foot of our bed. He loved sleeping in our bed for the first few months. I loved it to. When he was a newborn, he first fell asleep on either Daniel or my chest. In a few weeks, he was sleeping snuggled under our arms like a baby bird. Then I began to roll him over to his own place in the bed after each nightly nursing. By three months, he didn't like to be disturbed in his sleeping by an arm or the head of his parents. So we got him a cute portable crib. In a few months, when he's waking less and the SIDS most dangerous time is over, I'll move him into his own room. I am liking this easy natural sleeping progression. But I realize I am lucky and Joaquin is a sleeper. Plus, after my mom mentioned that perhaps he should go to bed and naps on his own, I have been laying him down after a song wrapped in his blanket. After a few rustlings and yelps, much like my old dog Wiley circling his bed for a snooze, he goes right to sleep.

East Coast Tour,Third Stop: New Haven, CT

Baby J and I continued onto New Haven Connecticut after our lovely Ottawa visit. The whole family of 3 took the Amtrak Adirondack from Montreal to New York City. The train is a great deal at $60 one-way. The ride's a little long at 11 hours, but the train is always roomy. The baby was pretty good on the train. I was more annoyed by the Romanian grandmother-daughter next to us that chattered on the entire journey in Romanian, loudly as they knew no one would understand. The grandmother drove me crazy. I had to give up my cushy four booth seats to escape her. Daniel said Susie and I would be just as bad. But I don't think so.

After a night and day in New York at my old friend and fellow new mama, Alice's apartment in Brooklyn, baby and I met Clararose at Grand Central Station to head to my mom's house in New Haven.

Baby J and I stayed for a whole week. We had a great time in the guestroom that was specially set up for our visit with baby things. Susie hosted a baby brunch so everyone could see our new baby. Luckily, Joaquin was very cooperative with all the cooing and patting of the excited guests. I did enjoy showing him off and having a great excuse to leave conversations- 'oh he needs his diaper changed'.

A great Boehm family picture

My visit to New Haven was the best I have had in years. My mom and I have so much in common now- Joaquin. Joaquin, whom she calls Biggie, loves his grammie. We heard him laugh for the first times during our visit. Joaquin is also very lucky to have many fun aunts and uncle.

With his aunt Cloe, a natural baby whisperer

With his Tio (uncle) QuitoAnd Auntie Clararose on Yale Campus

Joaquin enjoyed some downtime at a local coffee shop.

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.