Here's a picture of Max's teeth! Not great, but he doesn't show them for the cameras, so we'll be happy with what we got:Flu season is completely insane this year. I overheard one woman talking to one of my clerks this week about how she thought it was so much worse this year. I agree, but the next thing she said completely floored me. First of all, let me mention that this woman was wearing an Obama t-shirt...which makes the things that came out of her mouth next hilarious to me. She said she thought this was something that the government was putting out there...you know, like all that syphilis. She was seriously comparing the swine flu (ahem, excuse me..H1N1 influenza) to Tuskegee! I mean, really? That one had me going for hours! The things I hear people say. Yes, Tuskegee was reprehensible and unforgivable. Definitely not laughing at that, just the comparison.

The last couple of days I have really been wanting to go off the cleanse and just eat whatever. My milk supply is suffering and I have been craving FOOD! Not really sweets, though, so that's a plus. Except I have eaten a lot of dates lately. Man, they are good! Okay, so I guess I have been. Anyway, except the dates, I've been doing well. I think my milk supply has suffered because I'm not pumping for as long at work as I used to...no time. Sometimes I can't pump as often and when I do, I'm so wound up that it's hard to get decent letdowns. It's really frustrating, since I am scrambling to keep up with Max. I have no extra milk in the freezer, and so I'm having to pump all day today to get enough for work tomorrow and the next day. Also, I'm not drinking enough water and I don't think I'm eating enough. Again, at work...there is just no time. I'm often struggling to keep up because it's so crazy lately and then when I pump I get behind, so most of my day is spent struggling just to keep my head above water. Max is so worth it, though.

This morning I scrambled 2 eggs with some spinach in olive oil, butter, salt and pepper because I was starving and it's cold outside and inside and I just couldn't drink a smoothie. Probably too many eggs to be cleanse-friendly, but it was yummy!

The house hasn't seen any new visitors lately, I am told that the construction people are still interested but they haven't been back either. I hope this house sells soon, I really want to be able to save some money like we said we would, but we can't as long as we're living here and I'm part time. November would have been when I go back full time but I'm not planning to. So I really really hope it works out soon.

So, Max is completely down with the crawling and pulling up. He still hasn't pulled up on any furniture though. And he is almost 8 months old, I can't believe it! I got him a new potty the other day because I think it will help him go, since he always goes sitting down or standing in the ExerSaucer...it's a Baby Bjorn Little Potty. He can sit unassisted on this one and his feet touch the floor, so I think it will help. So far so good, except that it slides on the tile floor really easily, so I can't leave him unattended (not that I would). I'm going to have to figure out some sort of grippy to put on the bottom of it so it stays put.

Things are happening quickly around here...

Everything but the cleanse, that is. And the house selling. And flu season. Oh well, maybe the only thing that's moving quickly is Max's development. He hasn't even gotten crawling down completely and he's starting to pull up! He'll crawl over toward me and try to pull up in my lap and I'll hold my hands out for him. He grabs my fingers and stands up with no assistance from me. He's sitting up from lying down very well, too. Naturally, with all these developments he's not really all that interested in pottying. I can sit him on the potty for 5 minutes and he won't go, but as soon as I put him down in his diaper and he starts crawling, he goes. He did manage to get a little poop in the potty this morning, but that was all, and then he went the rest in his diaper. I'm still persevering, though. I know it will pass.

Today is day 7 on the cleanse. One week down, 2 more to go, and I am so sick of vegetables today. Especially raw ones. So I made a stew today. It's perfect stew weather outside, 60ish degrees and overcast, and I know I can eat a TON of stew. So I just put about 3/4 pound of meat in it, with vegetable broth, onion, garlic cabbage, green beans, tomatoes, and carrots. I didn't put in potatoes because I don't want to have to pick them out. It was really good; I've already had 3 bowls and I know it's really good for me with it being mainly veggies. (I do miss the cornbread, though!) The past couple of days I've not had so much raw veggies, I've been roasting them so Max can have some too. Roasted asparagus is really good...I was surprised by that and ended up eating the whole bunch by myself (except I gave 2 to Max). Roasted broccoli, not so much. Maybe it's because I had made myself nearly sick eating the yummy squash apple soup I made yesterday. I've really been enjoying the smoothies so I try to put spinach in there as much as possible. I wish they weren't bothering Max though. Still thinking about how I can fix that, I don't know how the cleanse will be as effective without that SP Complete. It seems to be the main component. He seems to feel pretty good, although now I think his semi-snotty nose is probably due to the milk protein and probably the mucus in his poops.

I finished season 2 of The Office and started season 3 (on hulu.com) and it's getting really good. I'm glad I made it through the first season, but I honestly don't know how that show made it past. It was really quite painful to watch.

I got a couple of packages from amazon.com today, I bought Max a placemat that suction cups to the table (boy, how we need that!) and a little wooden hippo pull toy:
http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Deluxe-Happy-Hippo/dp/B000GZCCQE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1254951503&sr=8-1

I'm going to try to wait until Christmas to give it to him, but I'll probably end up not making it.

I'm going to try to post some pictures soon, I need to get some ones of him showing off his teeth, but those are hard to come by!

Day 5-Morning

The last couple of days have been not as easy as the first 2 as far as cravings, but I knew that was coming. Yesterday I made a curried okra stew from Cindy's recipe but after all the curried lentils from the first couple of days, I'm kind of sick of curry. I think I'll freeze it for later and lay off curry for a while. I'm hoping today I'll be better able to resist eating bad stuff as I'm not at work. Yesterday those sour gummy bats I gave Lauren were staring at me and tempting me all day! I did prevail, however, even though I didn't drink as much water or eat as much vegetables as I had hoped.

Max has been getting some dry skin on his legs, I thought it was carpet irritation from his attempts at crawling, but it's not only on his knees...it's also on his face. So I'm thinking it's due to the whey protein in the SP Complete that I'm using in my smoothies. If it keeps getting worse I may have to do something about that. I'm kinda bummed because I had a couple of samples that I tried before I bought all the supplements and it didn't bother him, so I thought he was over it. I guess it takes a while for it to start bothering him. As long as it's just kinda dry and not an actual rash I'll keep trucking with the cleanse. Also, he's been having more poop lately...and of course I haven't been able to catch most. Last night he filled 2 diapers in rapid succession, but he didn't want to go on the potty right before that as usual. This morning he woke up at 4:30 and after unsuccessfully trying to get him back to sleep I just got up with him and took him to potty. He peed but no poop. After bringing him into the living room for a while to play, wham-o. Another one. I think this also may be due to the milk protein because it has more of a watery component than normal. Sorry if that's TMI, but I get to give TMI on my blog if I want to. :) Before, he had been going just once a day usually, and that was much easier to manage.

See said crawling here:


He's still doing well with his eating, although he hasn't been wanting to eat as much since his teeth have started bothering him again. He did have some mashed potatoes this weekend with his PawPaw and some applesauce at his MamMaw's...he loved both, of course! He would grab the loaded spoon and help guide it into his mouth.

Last night was sweet potatoes, one of his favorite foods, but he was more interested in blowing raspberries (one of his favorite activities):

Did he really just do that?

Today has been a high-maintenance day for Max. I saw the evidence of the bottom tooth #2 coming in, and so he's been kind of cranky, not taking great naps, not wanting to be pottied, etc. So I was lying in bed nursing him, trying to get him to get a nap just a little bit ago, when he popped off and was playing and babbling to himself. Presently he turned toward me with his right hand in a pretty good semblance of the BSL sign for "potty" (I've been using it with him sometimes for a few months now). He hadn't been in a while and so I thought, why not? I reinforced it with him and took him in there. Waiting, waiting...and nothing. He did do it once more while on the potty, quite well, in fact, but alas, it was not to be. I'd run out of diapers so he was nakey-butt at the time, so I went and plopped him down in the middle of my Longhorns quilt my mother made me a few years ago, and went to put some laundry away, or some other household chore. I imagined what a mess it would be should he decide to potty while on that blanket so I came back to check on him after just a minute. He was sitting there, smiling up at me, and as I came around the back of him....Lo and behold, when I looked under his onesie, there it was. A lovely pile of poop...right in the middle of Bevo. (It pretty much matched UT colors, though, so there's that.)

Incidentally, as I am fascinated with the poop now that we've been giving him regular food, I was interested to see tiny little fleshy pieces of mandarin orange from last night's dinner. Way to go, Max!

So I stripped him down and cleaned him up, put him on a puddle pad and went to go dunk his clothes and when I came back, he had peed, too!

So maybe he was using the signs after all! Time will tell...

Elimination Communication

I had a question posted in the comments section of an earlier blog, so I thought I'd answer it here. It was about elimination communication (EC for short).

I was reading Cindy's blog one day about how she got into doing EC with Harper, and like her, I pooh-poohed the idea, until I read more about it. Here's the basic idea:

Animals are born with the innate desire NOT to sit in their own waste. Just look around nature and you'll see. Human babies are the only ones taught to do so. Before the advent of disposable diapers a lot of babies were potty trained prior to 2 years of age. My own grandfather's mother claimed that he was potty trained at 3 months (they just hung him out the window).

Human babies are conditioned to sit in their own waste in diapers, and then we marvel at how hard it is to train them NOT to go in their diapers after they have done it for a year or two! If you start early (prior to 6 months is ideal but you can even start later) you can learn their cues as to when they need to go and just take them to the potty. You just have to watch them, and it can take a while to learn, but they will let you know when they need to go, believe it or not! We've been doing this with Max since he was about 3-4 weeks old, and it's actually pretty fun! You don't have to do it all the time, even. Cloth diapering helps, because you can know when they've gone sooner, and they can feel when they're wet. This way they don't get used to sitting in it.

Some people do EC with the intent of going completely diaper-free, and some just use it as a tool to make true potty-training easier when the time comes. Nay-sayers say it's not training the kid, but the parent, but don't we have to learn our babies' cues for hunger, tiredness, etc.? This is no different. It just takes attachment parenting to a whole new level, and I'm for that! I like it because I'm getting to know Max even better, it cuts down on diaper changes, reduces blowouts (that alone was enough for me) and the chance for diaper rash. It's also fun to hear people's reactions...most are amazed when they hear about it, and even more so if they get to see him in action!

I'm sure I'm leaving lots of stuff out, but this is the basic idea. For more info, visit http://www.diaperfreebaby.org/, or check out the book by the same name by Christine Gross-Loh. Good stuff.