Harvesting Kale: May 2011

the joys of moving with (a very mobile and active) toddler.

Are you catching the sarcasm in the title? Aside from a few unpacked boxes and a 900 lb. piano that still needs to migrate over somehow, our little family has finally settled into our new house. Kris and I have moved a lot over the years, so you'd think we would be experts at this by now - but moving with a very mobile and active toddler has been a whole new adventure. Now that I've lived through the experience, I feel I should share my top three tips so someone else doesn't make the same eighty-four mistakes we did.

1. Pack early. Pack organized. I highly recommend that you start packing more than two days in advance. In fact, toddler or no toddler, this is a top tip, folks. I was pretty much in moving-denial. Despite being super excited to get into our new place, I some how imagined that if I didn't pack, our stuff would just magically float across the street and set itself up. I did start packing about a week before our move date - but every newly packed box and every empty shelf was just a new climbing obstacle for Kale. We really should have cleared out a room and designated it the 'packed stuff' room and kept Kale out of there.

2. Let the very mobile and active toddler help pack, clean and do other child labour tasks. Every time Kris sees a kid mowing the grass or shoveling a driveway Kris gets super excited and says "Kale, that's going to be you one day buddy!" Remember back in the day when people had a lot of kids so they had free labour to help on the family farm? Kris still lives in this era.
One of Kale's favourite things to do these days is unpack things. He likes to pull all his clothes out of his dresser drawers, dump out his toy bins, and pull clothes out of the dryer. This means he was great at helping unpack, but not much help in the packing department - unless it involves packing himself in a box (which is pretty cute):

3. Babyproof before bringing in the child. We went from a one-level home to a four-level home and so before we moved we didn't have a need for baby gates. We lasted about 45 minutes (all of which were spent walking behind Kale as he went up and down the stairs over and over and over) before we went to buy the gates. We went to a local baby store where they convinced us that we needed the most expensive gates in the entire world or we would be putting our son's life at risk. We then proceeded to spend our life savings on baby gates. No joke. LIFE SAVINGS. I really wish I would have been prepared before the move and had time to look at different models and price them out. I also wish we would have had time to babyproof the place without Kale there - although he was really helpful in finding the outlets (electrical outlets are baby MAGNETS. For reals.).

I'm sure that all of this is total common sense to the average parent (so I'm not sure what that says about us). I thought that moving two doors over with fifteen days of overlap between the places was going to make things really easy. Instead it's just made it a drawn out affair that involves us parading our junk down the street for all our neighbours to make fun of. Tonight we'll go do a last clean and move the piano and finally be finished with the move. As much as I love our new home, I am going to miss that little old place something fierce. We made a baby there, birthed a baby there, and became parents in that house. Kris told me last night that if he won the lottery he`d buy the property, tear down the house, build a park and let the birth tree** flourish. Until then, I`ll have to settle for pausing at the house on our walks and taking a few seconds to think of all the amazing things that happened in Kale`s first home.

**the birth tree refers to the plant that grew outside our bedroom window. It was a small plant. Then we dumped the water from the birthing pool out the window and, in a very short amount of time, the small plant became a tree that threatened to overtake our entire house.

childcare.

Here's the thing - when you take a break from blogging (because it's your son's first birthday, your birthday, mother's day, you MOVE, you have a giant work event and an annual report due and your preformance review all in the same day), it's really, really hard to put your fingers back on the keys to type. So after a couple weeks off (does last Friday's "checking in" post count?), I'm coming back with a doozey, folks: childcare.

Thanks to a year of parental leave, we didn't even think about childcare for 12 blissful months. For the first ten months or so when other mom's told me that they had their kids on waiting lists since they were born and had toured all the best centres back when they were pregnant, I'd pretend not to hear them. Then I started convincing myself that I put Kale on waiting lists, but was so sleep deprived that I just didn't remember. Honestly people, this is how I handled it. Worst, right?

It really shouldn't surprise anyone that when Kale turned 11 months I went into full on panic/planning mode to find Kale appropriate childcare. The problem is, there are not many centres in my town and ALL of them have a waiting list. Ok, there is ONE place that doesn't - but everyone says there is a reason for that. The other option is home care and luckily I have a co-worker who is equally as insane as I am and also has a child that is one year older than Kale. So she lent me her spreadsheet of all the home care's in town, complete with a ranking system and evaluation based on actual visits. Yay for crazy people!

Kris and I went to exactly ONE homecare and knew it was not for us. Yes, this was clearly ridiculous since I'm sure there are a lot of wonderful homecares and we probably would have found one if we looked at more (say, two...maybe three).

As much as I like the idea of Kale being with other kids, there was one major issue that was stressing us out: Kale's naps. You see, Kale likes to nap and he NEEDS to nap, but naps are hard for this little guy. He needs to be rocked, bounced, rolled, or nursed to sleep. Then he sleeps for half an hour and he needs to be rocked, bounced, rolled or nursed BACK to sleep. Then you need to hold him for 45-60 minutes. Yes, I realize that most people think this is insane, but we have tried EVERYTHING (short of crying it out) to get him to sleep past 30 minutes or to sleep on his own for the second half of his nap, and NOTHING has worked.

And so I think this is why we weren't comfortable with a home care situation. Because it's very unlikely that we would find someone who would be able to respond to all of Kale's sleep needs while watching a handful of other kids of various ages. So we decided to look for a nanny....

I posted an ad on kijiji and crossed my fingers that we would find someone wonderful. Ok, I posted a ridiculously specific ad on kijiji and crossed my fingers that a wonderful person would not think I was insane and respond. My ad was so ridiculously specific, that my friends actually saw it online and called me to make fun of me. But guess what? Someone wonderful DID respond.

And so I thought we had it made. Kris's mom would watch Kale three days a week and the nanny would take the other two days.

But here's the thing - it's been a month and Kale is NOT taking to the nanny. She is really great with him, but he is just not taking to her. He cries when I leave (8 times out of 10 he does NOT do this when I leave him with his nana), he cries most of the day (I work from home and can hear him), he screams bloody murder when she tries to put him down for a nap, he cries as soon as he see's me and then when I pick him up, he turns to her, waves and says "buh bye."

We're trying to give it more time, but it's HARD. I'm super stressed all day at work when I know he is with her. I end up crying in the driveway after I have to leave my red-faced, screaming baby with her. She does her best to distract him, comfort him and make him smile, but it just doesn't seem to work. We are consistant in how we say goodbye, we don't stick around and drag it out - just say goodbye, give him a kiss, wave and go. I don't really know what else to do, but try and give it more time and hope that he warms up to her. Anyone else dealt with this? Thoughts? Suggestions?? I want to make this easier on EVERYONE involved.

checking in.

I can't believe that I haven't posted in almost a week! This is probably the longest I've gone since I started this blog over a year ago. Things at work have been insanely busy and I've barely had time to eat and sleep, let alone blog. I've been pulling 14-15 hour days - which means working regular office hours all day, coming home to spend time with Kale, and then working more after he's gone to bed. Not a good routine. Oh, and we moved last weekend! That was crazy (more on this later). The good news is that it's a long weekend and I have three full days off work! Woot woot!

In other blogging news, I wanted to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone for their very sweet comments during my "one year of parenting" series. I really enjoyed writing it and I was so happy to hear that people enjoyed reading it. If you're a blogger, then you know how nice it is to get comments. It lets you know that people are actually reading!! I LOVED that I got a lot of comments from new readers (not that I don't love you regulars!!)

Overall, writing the series really gave me an amazing opportunity to look back and reflect on the past year and see how we've all grown as a family. I think I'm going to attempt writing a regular (weekly, monthly? I'm not sure) post specifically about parenting in the future. I also found it really helpful to write regularly when I knew ahead of time what I was going to write about. Often I find myself sitting in front of a blank blogger screen and all the idea's I had for posts seem to vanish. I need to start writing my idea's down and working my way through the list. If any of you have any idea's for posts, please let me know!

Oh, and in case you forgot what the cutest baby (still not ready to call him the "t" word) every looks like - here you go:

one year of parenting: baby led weaning.

As a way to reflect on the first year of Kale's life, I've decided to write a series of posts chronicling our experiences following the principles of attachment parenting - specifically Dr. Sears' 7 Baby B's (with some baby-led weaning thrown in for good measure!). I hope you enjoy.

baby-led weaning.

Baby Led Weaning just means letting your child feed themselves from the very start of weaning. That’s the essence of Baby Led Weaning. No purees, no ice cube trays, no food processor, no potato masher, no baby rice, no weird fruit and veg combos… just you and your child, eating food that you enjoy with you and your family.

We introduced solids to Kale at six-months and I wrote a post about baby-led weaning after about a month and a half that you can read HERE. Since that post is pretty indepth, this is more of an update about how baby-led weaning is going for us. At one year old, Kale has never had "baby food." He's always eaten (a sometimes modified version of) whatever we've been eating. This means Kale has eaten things like curry, sushi and fish. Since food allergies don't run in either family, he's also had peanut butter and eggs (still no honey...more because we are not big honey eaters though).

Ninty percent of the time, Kale is a champion eater. The other ten percent of the time he's whipping his food on the floor and trying to sneak pieces of cheese to the cat. We try to be laid back and remind ourselves that he'll eat if he's hungry and if not, no big deal. Lately he's really into eating off my fork - not his fork, my fork. This is his way of ensuring that he is eating exactly what we are.

Sometimes Kale enjoys the highchair, but lately he'd rather cruise around all day and take a nibble here and there. I've been looking to my good friend Dr. Sear's and taking his advice about 'grazing' and the nibble tray.

Baby-led weaning worked really well for us and I absolutly cannot imagine introducing solids any other way. Even if you don't want to do baby-led weaning full time, I recommend introducing finger foods along with purees. We didn't have to deal with the transition from one to the other, he's developed a healthy palate for a wide-range of foods, and his pincer grip is killer. Also, he's an adorable eater:

one year of parenting: birth bonding.

birth bonding.

The way baby and parents get started with one another helps the early attachment unfold. The days and weeks after birth are a sensitive period in which mothers and babies are uniquely primed to want to be close to one another. A close attachment after birth and beyond allows the natural, biological attachment-promoting behaviors of the infant and the intuitive, biological, caregiving qualities of the mother to come together. Both members of this biological pair get off to the right start at a time when the infant is most needy and the mother is most ready to nurture.

You can read my birth story HERE.

About three weeks after Kale was born, some doula's in town hosted a 'Red Tent Event.' This was an opportunity for mother's to come together and share their birth stories. Even though I wasn't quite ready to share my story (I was still reeling from the intensity of it at all at that point), I was eager to hear others.

Lexy, Hudson, Kale & I on our way to the Red Tent event.

We came in a little bit late and found a spot on the floor to sit. About 20 women were gathered in a circle, some with babies nestled in slings and others with babies crawling and exploring. One by one, they shared their stories. I was shocked by what I heard. I mean, I'd heard of bad birth experiences before - doctor's pushing c-sections and drugs, nurses whisking away babies too soon, mothers who felt they weren't being listened to - but I assumed such cases were the exception, not the norm. Yet the women at the Red Tent Event shared stories that brought tears to my eyes and made my heart ache for them. It was at this point that I began to shift from thinking of my birth experience as intense (which, of course, it was) to something more - intensely beautiful and intensely awesome.

I am so grateful that I had the birth experience I did. That I had so many incredibly supportive women (my midwives and doula) help bring him into this world. That I had a partner that was my rock during my entire labour and delivery.

I'm also so grateful for Leslie, my midwife, who told me to stay in bed for 7 days when Kale was born. The way the midwives work here is that they come and visit you in your own the day after the baby is born, and then on the third day and the fifth day and then you go visit them at 2 weeks post-partum. The after-care is just one of the amazing things midwives offer. Leslie told me that when she came back on the first and third day, she wanted to see me in bed. She told me that if I could get myself to the mall (like some of her previous clients had done), that I could get myself to her office rather than her coming to my house. She told me to keep visits short and spend the first seven days healing and bonding with my baby.

And so that's exactly what I did.

In fact, aside from a short walk around the block after 7 days, I didn't actually go anywhere with Kale until he was two weeks old. I probably would have waited longer than that, but Kris's grandparents had come to visit and we went to his parents for a few hours. Instead of trying to jump back into life and show off my baby, we stayed home and got to know each other. I have such amazing memories of those first two weeks. Of birth bonding.

If you're pregnant, you should take Leslie's advice. Stay in bed for a week. Bond.

Midwives orders.

one year of parenting: breastfeeding.

breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is an exercise in babyreading. Breastfeeding helps you read your baby's cues, her body language, which is the first step in getting to know your baby. Breastfeeding gives baby and mother a smart start in life. Breastmilk contains unique brain-building nutrients that cannot be manufactured or bought. Breastfeeding promotes the right chemistry between mother and baby by stimulating your body to produce prolactin and oxytocin, hormones that give your mothering a boost.

This has been a pretty incredible weekend - Kale turned one year old, I celebrated by second mother's day, and Kale kicked his walking skills into high gear. All of these events made my heart soar, but nothing quite made my pride explode like this morning when I was nursing Kale and Kris wandered in and said "congratulations on one year of breastfeeding - you're officially extended breastfeeding!"

I always planned to breastfeed Kale for the first year, but I had no idea how challenging, how rewarding, and how amazing it would be. I can honestly say that breastfeeding has been one of the most humbling and joyful experiences of my life.

Before Kale was born, I just assumed that breastfeeding would come natural. I mean, is there anything more natural than a mother nursing her child? I see the naivety in this now, but pretty much every mom I talk to has told me they thought the same thing. And if it didn't come natural? Well I read Jack Newman's Guide to Breastfeeding from front to back at least twice when I was pregnant. I thought I was prepared.

I had wanted to nurse Kale immediately after he was born. In fact, I wanted to see him squirm from my belly to my breast, just like I'd read about. It was going to be magical. It was going to be so natural! Then, after 23 hours of labour and two hours of pushing, Kale arrived in that cool pool of water. While I was overjoyed and high on endorphins, I was also exhausted, depleted and freezing cold. What I really wanted was go get the placenta out, get the stitches in, and get my new family into bed for the night. So I didn't nurse Kale immediately, I nursed him about an hour after he was born. Or should I say, attempted to nurse him. Because guess what? Nothing about breastfeeding felt natural in that moment. I was so awkward, he was so tiny, and neither of us knew what the hell we were doing.

The next three days were torture in the breastfeeding department. Even though my nipples hurt like hell, I was so hesitant to admit it to my midwives and doula. Why couldn't I figure this out? Why wasn't it natural? Where was my milk? Am I starving my baby??? Oh god, it was stressful.

By day four my milk arrived in a big way. You'd think this would have made things easier. For awhile it did. The nipple soreness went away, Kale seemed satisfied, and I relaxed a little. We both seemed to be getting the hang of it.

Unfortunately, this did not last long. I had a lot of difficulties with an assertive let-down that I wrote about HERE. Dealing with this was incredibly challenging for me and Kale. It took until he was 10 weeks old before we had figured out how to deal and another four or five weeks to wean ourselves from pumping the let-down.

By the time he was four months old, we had it figured out. Finally, breastfeeding felt natural. We were on a nursing honeymoon. It was all going so well. Kale was an avid nurser, but he was fast. So we'd nurse every couple hours until he was 8 months old, but he would rarely nurse longer than four minutes. Thanks to my abundant milk supply I never had to nurse on both sides and had a very healthy freezer stash for when I returned to work.

When I went back to work, I had to deal with new challenges. Even though I was nursing Kale before I left for work (8:30am) and then at lunch and then when I got home (4:30pm), he still wanted milk when I wasn't around and my freezer stash couldn't keep up. I pumped at work, but because I'm often in meetings it became really hard to balance it all. I kept pumping when I could, but I knew my supply was going down. I started taking fengu greek and blessed thistle and calcium magnesium, but I didn't find it helped much.

So now Kale is one year old and I'm still pumping at work and we still nurse 4-5 during the day and 3-4 times at night, but I can tell he's not satisfied like he used to be. My goal was to nurse Kale until he turned 2, but I'm not sure we're going to make it. I'm sad about that, but happy we made it this far.

I'm happy we made it natural.

one year of parenting: babywearing

babywearing.

A baby learns a lot in the arms of a busy caregiver. Carried babies fuss less and spend more time in the state of quiet alertness, the behavior state in which babies learn most about their environment. Babywearing improves the sensitivity of the parents. Because your baby is so close to you, you get to know baby better. Closeness promotes familiarity. (Click here for more information on Babywearing)

Babywearing is what really sold us on attachment parenting. When I read about all the benefits of babywearing it literally made me squeal with delight (and I am not much of a squealer). When I was pregnant I would call Kris in from my reading nest in the bathtub where I would pile Dr. Sear's books up along the ledge and flip through, drenching the pages as I went, and squeal things like "they learn more!" and "they cry less!" We were totally sold on babywearing before Kale even left the womb.

Enter Kale. Like most newborns, he wanted to be held all the time. The first few weeks Kris was off work and everyone wanted to visit, holding Kale all day and night was not an issue. But then Kris went out of town and there wasn't as many people around and I really needed to get a load of laundry in and a sandwich made. That's when the ring sling became our very best friend.

I would put Kale in the sling and he would be a sleep in less than a minute. While he snoozed I had both hands free to do as much as my little desired (which beyond the laundry and sandwich, was not a whole lot). Pretty soon we added a Beco to the collection, then a pouch sling sized for Papa, and a mei tai wrap. I actually wrote about my love for all our carriers and babywearing here.

I wrote that post back in August, when Kale was just over three months old. As he got older he went through a love/hate relationship with babywearing. He's had phases where he totally resisted being worn and those times really broke my heart. I love wearing him so much that I hated the thought of having to give it up. I never forced him into it, I would just try a few days later to see if he'd change his mind and eventually he did. The interesting thing is, Kale likes being worn by Kris more than me. This actually isn't all that bad now that he's heavier!

I think that I captured our love for babywearing in my original post on the topic, so I won't say much more. Just that I still squeal every time I see a baby being worn......

one year of parenting: bedding close to baby.

bedding close to baby.

Wherever all family members get the best night's sleep is the right arrangement for your individual family. Co-sleeping co-sleeping adds a nighttime touch that helps busy daytime parents reconnect with their infant at night. Since nighttime is scary time for little people, sleeping within close touching and nursing distance minimizes nighttime separation anxiety and helps baby learn that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a fearless state to remain in.

When I was pregnant I was convinced that the most important baby item I needed to purchase was the crib. I spent hours pouring over websites, reading safety reviews, and picking out crib sheets. Ok, hours might be an understatement. It was probably more like weeks. Maybe months. Anyway, I found the perfect crib - simple, clean lines, and with a good safety rating. Kris's parents graciously paid for this beautiful piece of furniture and I couldn't get it set up fast enough (err, I couldn't get Kris to set it up fast enough). Our cat Bubbie, who thinks boxes are the best invention ever, was in love and spent many hours snoozing away in his new giant box.

As I progressed through my pregnancy and became more familiar with co-sleeping and attachment parenting in general, I started to get more and more uncomfortable with the idea of my baby sleeping away from me in the first few weeks of his life. So we bought a moses basket. And I spent hours (maybe weeks) looking for the softest, coziest moses basket sheets. This was no easy feat since gingham seems to have a strong hold on the moses basket industry. I eventually found the softest, coziest yellow fleece sheets and again, Bubbie was in love.

Fast forward to the week before my due date. I was in a panic - the moses basket wasn't going to do. I needed my baby closer and for much longer than the moses basket would allow. I became obsessed with the Arm's Reach Co-sleepers, which were clearly out of our budget, but at the same time seemed like the ONLY solution. I scoured craigslist and at 39 weeks pregnant we drove to Toronto to pick one up. We bought new sheets for it, set it up with the sound machine and the the little bear with the heartbeat noise and I relaxed. Bubbie, of course, was also very relaxed, sleeping away his last few baby-less days in the co-sleeper.

And then I gave birth in a pool of cool water (note to self - splurge on the portable water heater next time). Three hours later my new little family climbed into bed and the midwives told us to give Kale as much skin to skin time to get his temperature up. As I held him against my chest, snuggled in bed with Kris beside me, I looked at my midwife and asked "but where should he sleep?" The moses basket seemed huge. The co-sleeper looked big enough to land a helicopter in. My midwife looked at me and gently smiled at my little three hour old baby nestled on my chest and said, "right there." And so that is where he slept that night. And the next night. And the next night.

After a few nights, Kris and I tried to put him in the moses basket which he was quite content to nap in, but was not interested in spending the night in. We tried the co-sleeper. We swaddled and shushed and rocked that boy to sleep. Then we would place him ever so softly in the co-sleeper and he would spring awake screaming. When he was three weeks old, we were exhausted. It was the middle of the night and we couldn't put Kale down without him waking up. I was nursing him in the glider, reading the No Cry Sleep Solution, while Kris curled up on the floor of the nursery, and Bubbie watched us from inside the crib (which we never even considered putting Kale in). Finally I said "let's just put him in bed with us and re-evaluate when he's three months." Kris would have agreed to anything at that point. So we hauled ourselves into bed.

And we slept.

In fact, we slept better than we had in weeks. As soon as we stopped listening to everyone else's suggestions and did what felt right to us, we all got some sleep.

Kris and I both came to love bedsharing with Kale and when he turned three months (the point we said we would reevaluate our sleeping arrangements) we didn't even consider changing things. Here are a few things I love about bedsharing:

The snuggles. There is nothing more heartwarming than a sleeping baby and when I cuddle up to Kale at night my heart seriously explodes with love. Now that Kale is super mobile, he doesn't like to stop for too many snuggles during the day (although he has lots of hugs and kisses to give!), so I savour those moments at night.
The connection. Since I am at work all day and only have 3-4 hours with him in the evening, I felt like being close to Kale at night allows us to re-connect after our day apart. I also love the way it connects us as a family. I love that all three of us share a family bed.
Nursing. Kale still nurses 3-4 times a night and usually I can just lift my shirt, he'll latch on and we'll both drift back to sleep. I barely even wake up for it. I cannot imagine waking up and getting out of bed this many times a night to get Kale out of his crib and nurse him.
The sleep. Kale likes to be close to us, which is completely characteristic of a high-needs baby, and has trouble sleeping without Kris or I in bed with him, or someone holding him. Yes, this is challenging at times, but it's the way things are. I can't imagine how much more we would be waking at night if we were trying to get Kale to sleep away from us.
The wake ups. Nothing beats waking up to a slobbery, open mouthed kiss from your baby. Nothing.

Is there anything I don't like about bedsharing? Yes - the number of times people ask me when we're going to move Kale to his own room. I know a lot of people that bedshare lie to other's so they don't have to deal with this, but for some reason I feel like lying is almost like saying I'm ashamed of it. In fact, I'm really proud of the fact that we bedshare. That doesn't stop people from giving us the judging eye (often disguised by a sympathetic "aww, that must be tough. We had to do that for awhile too, but they grow out of it." - as if it's a hindrance for us).

Here's the thing - we have NO plan to move Kale to his own bed. We sidecarred his crib after our trip to Cuba when he took advantage of the king size hotel bed by rolling like a tumbleweed all night and then tried to continue that at home in our queen bed. We tried a couple of times to put him down there, but wasn't buying it. That's ok - he's not ready. We'll try again in a few months. When he's ready to sleep on his own, he'll show us or tell us. Until then, I'm taking all the snuggles I can get!

Bubbie in the crib (at least someone got some use out of it!)

Bubbie in the co-sleeper.

one year of parenting: belief in the language value of your baby's cry.

belief in the language value of your baby's cry.

A baby's cry is a signal designed for the survival of the baby and the development of the parents. Responding sensitively to your baby's cries builds trust. Babies trust that their caregivers will be responsive to their needs. Parents gradually learn to trust in their ability to appropriately meet their baby's needs. This raises the parent-child communication level up a notch. Tiny babies cry to communicate, not to manipulate.

I don't believe that babies should be left to cry or cry it out. When Kale was a newborn crying was the only way he could tell me what he needed and I believe that my job as a mama is to respond to his needs as quickly as possible. By responding to his needs, he learns that I'm there for him when he needs me and this builds trust which eventually leads to independence. To me, this makes so much logical sense that I have a hard time seeing it any other way.

Does that mean that "responding sensitiviely" is easy? Hells no. When Kale was a newborn, he had the tiniest little cry that made my heartbreak in itty bitty pieces. It didn't take long before that tiny little cry became a wail of terror that pierced eardrums and woke the dead. Kale cried A LOT the first few months of his life. A LOT. My midwife told me he was colic. I didn't accept it. I knew something was bothering him. Eventually, I figured out that I had an assertive let-down, that Kale was sensative to dairy and soy, and responded well to infant probiotic. Even though it helped, he still cried a lot.

It was hard.

Kris was working out of town four days a week and I was left to care for a crying baby. As much as people wanted to help, it was the night's that were the worst and the biggest thing I needed then was emotional support. Pretty soon that wail of terror was making it really difficult to "respond sensatively." Getting through this time was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It was hard physically because of the tension and exhaustion, mentally because I would beat myself up over getting frustrated, and emotionally because sometimes there was nothing I could do but cry along with him.

It took time, but I started to figure out how to stop his tears. I stopped having expectations and focused on accepting the baby I had. We stopped driving if we didn't have to (he hated the car seat), we wore him everywhere (he hated the stroller), I would pump in the middle of the night before nursing him so he didn't have to deal with the let-down. I never thought about leaving him to cry unless I absolutely had to or letting him cry it out at night and this is something I am extremely proud of.

What am I not proud of? The two times that I had to put him down while he was crying and walk away for a minute because my frustration and stress were getting out of control. I realize that I did the right thing by giving myself an opportunity to collect my thoughts and calm down and I realize people do this all the time - but it doesn't make it any easier to forget the look on his face when I walked away. Breaks my heart to even think about it.

Luckily, Kale rarely cries anymore. If he does it's because he's hungry or sleepy and both are pretty quick fixes. Now that Kale can point, pick things up and pass them to us, and say a small handful of words, he has other ways of communicating with us. We still respond to his needs, but as he nears toddlerhood, we're starting to think about limits and figuring out the difference between his wants and needs.

And even though I don't like to see Kale cry, I have to admit that sometimes it's kinda cute...