Wow. I suck at posting! Here goes....

Ok - so in just the last week alone, Dax has learned to say "Honey," has learned to slide down a slide without holding my hand, and has begun to feed himself brekky without ANY assistance - meaning, I have left him to his own devices to eat his OATMEAL while I get dressed (I have posted pictures of this in the past)... and he did GREAT! :) That's a HUGE step for us.
Not only that, but he's now absolutely fine with childcare at the church - we were doing pretty good there for a while, but we digressed about a month ago, when Dax bonked his head on a ping pong table, and he threw up because he was so distressed about it (he actually didn't even get a bruise - so thankful!), so the next day he threw up in childcare when I left him there for Building Blocks... but the sweet angels there didn't come get me when it happened. They swiftly packed up the room, got all the babies out, and kept on plugging away! I can't even tell you how much I owe the lovely ladies of Watermark childcare on Wednesdays and Thursdays/Fridays...! They're saints.

Also - in July, Dax started being able to eat peanut butter! *whew!* what a great and awesome thing peanut butter is... I can't even tell you. It's fabulous for snack times, on crackers, with bananas, by the spoonful... and we've now even worked in an ENTIRE (1/2 of a) peanut butter and jelly sandwich to our mealtimes! That's SO great!
Dax will happily eat just about whatever's in front of him - but I have noticed that he's not completely happy with the same thing twice in a row - unless I've skipped a snack, or he's slept through a snack. Otherwise, I try to keep it mixed up.
He's always loved his veggies - so I can often stick with peas for lunches and dinners for a while (until I get sick of serving them, really - and then we'll switch to broccoli or something else). But peas are quite easy - so who'd argue??

We're just floored with the kid he's turning out to be. After church today, we were all at lunch, and Dax leaned over to Anooj and went "uhh-uhh-uhh" with his mouth ready for a kiss - he just wanted to kiss his daddy! After Anooj gave him a kiss, he leaned over for one from me! What a sweet, sweet feeling that is! I can't even tell you.
He's just a bundle of love bug. And I just want to eat him up all day.
:)

He knows a ton of signs now, too - which makes our days SO interesting, and so much more worthwhile - he can tell me what he's thinking, what he wants, and what he sees - it's just amazing! I've been meaning to get a list of the signs he knows... but it'd probably be too boring for anyone to read... but the ones that seem the most important to us are: careful!, eat, hat, airplane, cracker, more, water, milk, PLEASE, HELP, shoes, frog (ribbit!) - which can be any reptile right now, other than a crocodile, crocodile!, monkey, duck, horse, bug, stars/socks (they're really similar!), mouse (from Goodnight Moon!), bear (teddy-bear), and of course, ball! Our day would be so much more difficult if we didn't have them...

And he says: Hi! (he's said that for a while now, but it's worth mentioning again -it's so cute when he does it!); boo-boo (he says bo-bo); corn; gone (all-gone; it's SO funny when he says it); *shooooossh* for airplane; FIRE truck, truck, truck, truck, truck, AWWWW truck, truck, truck (this could be Dump Truck, Garbage Truck, Fire Truck - although that one's pretty unmistakably loud, or just plain old Truck); moo-moo movie (he says mo-mo, or wo-wo-wo for movie); HOT - oo! hot!; woo-woo (dog); baaabaaa (sheep/goat); owwwowww! (cat)... and I'm probably forgetting so many more...


I'm so grateful that I've finally learned when he's tired, when he's hungry, and when he needs to go play outside and get some energy out. Those are cues I missed for quite a long time - and any normal person would question why that might happen, but I can honestly tell you that I was too busy trying to SEE them... I was too busy trying to survive, and trying to find out what was going on - that I didn't notice when the time was right to make things happen... like naps...
These are tough for every mom...
Some days I spend nearly the ENTIRE day trying to get Dax to nap... And the problem with this, is that our babies are just LEARNING MACHINES. And once they've learned that one action begets another, they'll keep doing whatever it is that got them what they wanted... to test it, yes - but to LEARN it BETTER... And on those days, Dax seems to learn that if he stays awake for one more song, or gets one more book read to him, then he can do it longer the next time... And those can be bad days...
For both of us...
But I've gotten SO much better at reading his cues - and a little fuss (when he realizes that he's about to lose the nap-battle with himself and just cannot stay awake any longer) can be SO worth it, if it nets us more than an hour of naptime.
:)
Anyway - we seem to be in a nice ebb-and-flow right now for our family.

Besides that I'm in school, and working, and trying to keep the house clean (what??), and being a full-time mommy, full-time wife, and a business owner...
It's been a little chaotic lately, to say the least - but I feel like we're all adapting pretty well for the effort so far.
:)
I'm proud of us in the Thakker household.

Protein Conundrum

So, Dax has basically decided that he doesn't like meat right now. This isn't horrible - but the fact that he cannot eat eggs or milk, means that I need to figure out some way to give him a little more protein.
(Dax shoveled down a ton of chicken the other day at a friend's house, which was a miracle - he never wants meat, so I kept giving it to him, only for me to realize in a really DUH moment - stuck in afternoon traffic on the way home, that it was CHICKEN SALAD! covered in mayo... Dax spewed all of the chicken, and an entire 9 oz. bottle of "milk" all over himself in the car... He has the very same reaction to real milk, too.) :(

I'd love other people's opinions about this too... but here's my thinking right now:

We're giving him soy milk, which has protein - but I'm not sure that's enough to give him what he needs daily. (We're also adding 2 oz. of milk-based toddler formula right now, but that will slowly be cut out in the next few months - we're really only using it for MY peace of mind, for the nutrients it contains).

I'm considering adding a protein powder to his soy bottles, and possibly to his morning bowl of cereal.
I've been researching protein powders, and the facts are that too much protein can make a person's kidney's not function very well and can lead to excretion of calcium (which means kidney stones). That doesn't sound very good. But I'm not thinking of using the recommended "serving sizes" on most protein powder packages, either (but he IS a tiny little person, too - so I should probably work on the actual serving size I'd be giving him). But the rest of the stuff I read about them has to do with weight lifting - and that's not my goal (apparently don't actually help, if you're in the market for protein powders to bulk your body up, anyway).

It seems, though, that Hemp protein powder may, in fact, be safest (it's only 50% protein at most), and also contains the wonderful fatty acids that babies need - Omegas 3, 6 and 9, and GLAs.
(some sources: All About Protein Powders, Feeding the Picky Eater excerpt, Nutiva product information)

Does this sound like I would be doing the right thing?
Should I supplement his protein slightly by adding a teaspoon of Hemp protein to his morning cereal, and to his 3 bottles of soy milk that he has a day?
Maybe I should just use it in his milk? Or just in his cereal?
Does anyone know if Sprouts sells this...? :) I know I could just trot my own fanny in there to see - but Dax is napping right now! :)

Anyway - I'll keep posting about how this goes - if we decide to do it.
:)
(and thanks for your comments and suggestions, in advance!)

-L.

I think I've been beaten...

There haven't been a whole lot of things in my life that I've done and have just sucked at... except for a few video games... my first marriage... I don't draw very well... (I'm sure my friends can think of a few other things I've done and sucked at - so I'll leave that for the comments section) :)
But parenting has left me completely baffled...
I mean, save from the easy aspects - clothing, diapering, general feeding - those have been fairly easy. So if I leave it at that, I could say I haven't totally sucked at this - my kid's still breathing, has grown quite a bit, and he's got clothes...
But the rest has just kicked my a$$.
Like, I don't know why Dax isn't sleeping at night... he was up every hour last night, but finally got about 2 hours straight between 5 and 7... We've tried a bedtime routine - a bath, then reading, singing, rocking, etc... no dice. And it's not that it just started to not work - it's NEVER worked. He's only slept more than 2 hours straight as many nights as I can count on my fingers... flukes, really.
He's pretty easy to get back to sleep - I rock him and pat his back, and he usually crashes out within 5-10 minutes, but sometimes even that doesn't work, and he just gets frenzied.
Breastfeeding has just served to give me more guilt - everyone says that he must not be eating enough in the day to sleep well at night... But I feed this kid every three hours, for at least 30 minutes, and I've even incorporated three solid food meals into the day on top of those feedings...
My mother in law saw him yawn the other day, and told ME that he was tired - but honest to God, when I try to put him down for a nap when I see him yawn, he rolls around and plays and screams in his crib for 20 minutes before I pull him out...
He'll take a quick catnap after he's dome nursing, but if I lay him in his crib, he instantly wakes up (or WILL wake up within 15 minutes).

So I'm trying something new.
Today I'm pumping only, and feeding by bottle, so I can get a measurement of exactly how much he IS eating during the day. I missed this morning already (I was so tired at 8, I laid down with him this morning, and he ate for nearly an hour because I was too tired to get out of bed once one half-hour had gone by).
But he took a bottle today at lunch, and I measured that he had 7.5 ounces...
and he still won't take a nap - I hear him playing in his crib, which is now turning to whining...
I better go get him.
Anyway - if anyone has any good advice for measuring feedings, how much a 10 month old SHOULD be eating at this point - I'd be grateful. Also - tell me what kind of nap routines seemed to have worked for you so far... I'm at a total loss.

I'm just hoping that the sleep will come as a byproduct of eating more than enough during the day... but I'm pretty skeptical at this point.