4 month checkup (updated with pics)

We had our 4 month well-child visit yesterday. M is 13 lbs 6 oz & T is 13 lbs 9 oz. That is 25th percentile, so they are slowly moving up on the curve. Their head circumferences are in the 50th percentile, which i guess explains why they 'look big'. T started out 3 oz bigger & he still is! I do find that amusing...

Here is as good as anyplace to record milestones & stuff. Not that there are too many yet -- they both can grab stuff but not very well yet. They like to eat their hands...M is working on sitting up alone, and he can almost do it. (A could sit alone, tentpole style, at ~4 months, but C not until nearly 7 months) . M has very good torso control. He will sit (propped) and play with a toy, it is really cute. They have gotten a little too big for using the nursing pillow for nursing, but it is pretty good to use to prop up M. He still doesn't really like the Bumbo for long.
"This-is-my-favorite-toy-I-must-eat-it"

T has no interest in sitting and wants to go directly to standing. He falls over directly if you try to make him sit, but will stand for long periods of time & love it.
Apologies for lack of focus & direction. This is a difficult sort of picture to take by yourself. Most of them come out like this:


The ped says M's flat head is in the range of normal, and that we can start with feeding them cereal. I know alot of people say now to wait until 6 months but i think i am going to start them now...basically because often they don't take a bottle from April so if she can feed them a little cereal in the morning it would be good. Plus it would give them an exciting activity to do which then might facilitate a morning on-time nap. We will see...

BLOG DAY FOR THE MOTHERS ACT, OCTOBER 24, 2007

I just will put the text of the press release here because i am short on time...

Bloggers across the country encouraged to call their U.S. Senator on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 in support of The MOTHERS Act.

Postpartum Support International, the world largest non profit organization devoted to the support of perinatal mental health, has joined forces with BlogHer, the web number one guide to women bloggers and Postpartum Progress the leading blog in the U.S. on postpartum mood disorders to galvanize support for the passage of The MOTHERS Act - The Moms Opportunity to Access Help, Education, Research and Support for Postpartum Depression Act. On Wednesday, October 24th, bloggers across the country will write about taking action on this critical legislation by placing calls to their state's senators urging sponsorship and support of The MOTHERS Act.

The MOTHERS Act, sponsored by U.S. Senators Robert Menendez, (D-NJ) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) will ensure that new moms and their families are educated about PPD, screened for symptoms, and provided with essential services. It will also increase research into the causes,
diagnoses and treatments for postpartum depression.

Specifically, the MOTHERS Act will help new moms by:

Providing important education and screening on postpartum depression (PPD) that can lead to early identification and treatment. The legislation includes two grants to help health care providers educate, identify and treat PPD.

Expanding important research to improve and discover new treatments, diagnostic tools and educational materials for providers. Since the exact cause of PPD isn't known, research continues to be the key to unlocking the mystery of this condition.

Postpartum depression is a serious and disabling condition that affects up to 20 percent of new mothers - 800,000 American women each year. Yet only 15 percent of these women will receive any assessment or treatment .Untreated, consequences of maternal mood disorders range from chronic, disabling depression to death. Consequences of untreated maternal depression on infants/children range from behavioral and learning disabilities to depression and death.

Susan Dowd Stone, president of Postpartum Support International states The good news is that perinatal mood disorders are preventable and easily treated once detected. The MOTHERS Act legislation is key because its initiatives are preventive, educational and treatment
oriented. PSI urges you to participate in this important campaign.

Lisa Stone, BlogHer Co-founder and CEO, said "The BlogHer community has chosen Global Health as the focus for our year-long blogging activism initiative, BlogHers Act. Blog Day for the MOTHERS Act is exactly the kind of project where BlogHer's community can make a
difference on legislation that will save women's lives."

Katherine Stone, author of the Posptartum Progress blog, adds "Postpartum mood disorders are a disease of motherhood -- they can affect any woman who becomes a mother, regardless of who she is. If we don't do something to better educate and treat the mothers who may
suffer, we are doing a disservice to all mothers, children and families everywhere. All it takes is a phone call to let the Senate know that the women of America want the MOTHERS Act to pass."


Postpartum Support International is the world's largest nonprofit organization offering support, referrals, education, training, and resources to health care providers, women, and families coping with perinatal mood disorders. With coordinators in 49 states and 29 countries around the world, PSI is well-positioned to continue its mission of eradicating perinatal mental illness in every community worldwide. Thousands of women and concerned family members call our
national warm line each year, attend our annual conference for healthcare providers and consumers, and visit our website to find local resources and support. PSI's website www.postpartum.net warmline 1-800-944-4773.

winter garden?

Rosepetal asked: "What else blooms in winter in your garden (apart from winter pansies)?"

The answer is, not much. The roses, winter pansies, and the anemone, usually hang on until the first hard frost. Then i cut down the dead stuff & it is bare except for three boxwood bushes which are in Nicolas' garden (but will have to be moved somewhere else in spring because that is no longer working for me). The winter pansies bloom again the very early spring, along with the first bulbs (crocus, snowdrops. i am too lazy now to link pictures, sigh.) I also have that hellebore which is supposed to be early but not that early -- Lenten Rose, Helleborus orientalis. There is supposedly one which blooms earlier -- Christmas Rose, Helleborus niger i think. I would like to get one of those, when i have a place to plant it. (That involves finishing the corner of the yard into a shady glade/seating area, whereas it is currently 'pile of bricks and old wood'. Next year, ha ha)

So, really my garden is devoid of what is called 'winter interest' by landscapers. I have been giving some thought to this for awhile, especially in the context of planting the beds in front of the house. I had been trying to figure out which bushes/grasses/etc. to plant out there that would give the garden that so-desired four seasons of glory and still be in some sense Victorian.

But i discovered this was not possible, because the notion of the four-season garden is one which is quintessentially modern. As far as i could discover, the Victorians didn't have 'winter interest', -- though Victorian gardening crazes originated or popularized almost every other gardening concept we have in our box of tricks (carpet planting, mixed borders, tropical plants, container gardening, theme gardens, exotic plant collections etc etc etc). But though these things -- greenhouses, tropicals, annuals in abundance, etc -- extend the season and make it possible to plant things in areas where they would never naturally grown, there is still a season. Winter is a time for the earth to sleep, and not really to display.

In modern times, we are far from this. We as a culture want things to be 'on' all the time. There is a lack of respect for the seasons of our existence. The garden should have winter interest, there should be cherries in the market in January, the middle-aged woman should have the figure of the 19-year old. Ok, maybe that's a leap but it is not that far of a leap. People's lives have seasons too, and indeed i am glad for that. But you won't see all those seasons on TV or in a magazine. There, and thus somehow collectively in our expectations of existence, it is always spring.

gratuitously cute baby picture

[photo removed]

The boys are 4 months old now....it is going fast. They have their checkup next week. They are currently sleeping but that doesn't happen often -- they are now 20-minute nappers for the most part. I really need to do something about that, but it is hard to let them cry. I have not been taking that many pictures, which is bad...i will have to try to take more! (it's T in the green hat)

Yeah, so, okay, so much for break time, i didn't stay gone for long. But really -- the boys are sleeping, so if i don't blog, i might have to do some work or something!

Anemone 'Honorine Jobert'

OK, it looks the same as last year, but bigger. I love this plant, though, it is so pretty and blooms so late in the year, when there's not much else. Mine is finally almost big enough to split...i want to put it in front of the house too. So, next year, i guess...

vignette from my life

All the dry-erase markers were dead this morning in class, so i opened a new pack. Of a different brand. Wow, did they have an interesting smell.

"So, we define addition of the whole numbers in the following way. If a set R has r elements and a set S has s elements and R and S are disjoint, then the sum of r plus s, written r+s, is the number of elements in the union of R and S."

"Now, that is one CRAZY-ASS definition of addition, don't you think? I don't make this stuff up, you know. This bizarreness goes back to our friend Bertrand Russell..."

...wait a minute the students are laughing at me....

"in the early part of the 20th century, and the desires to put mathematics on a totally firm logical footing..."

...wait a minute did i just say 'crazy-ass' in class?...oh shit....

"Allright, I'm babbling, forget Bertrand Russell."

*silence*

"Well, you try lecturing when you've been up all night with two screaming infants and are breathing these marker fumes. I'm not kidding, they are intense. We should pass them around and ALL have a good time!"

*more laughter, this time presumably not at my expense?*

...hell now am i going to have pump my breast milk and dump it??.....

October 15th

Sarah's boy is here!

If you're waiting on me, i posted the news on Sarah's blog!

CONGRATULATIONS!

break time

OK, before you all hear news of some insane woman in Detroit skewering her husband with kitchen implements because of his total and complete multiple failures with the recycling...i had better pull back & take a little break from as many aspects of my life as possible. 'Cuz i'm on the edge here....

So, no blogging for a bit, until i get my life in some better order here -- a process which may include such shocking measures as eating takeout and hiring a cleaning lady...just once a month would make *such* a big difference around here. But i am weird about having people clean my house...so we will see. Anyway i will be back in a week or so, but not reading/commenting until then. And maybe when i get back i can manage more content than cute stories of the kids...or, well, maybe not...

at the zoo

This is pretty pathetic -- M & T's first trip to the zoo and i got ONE picture of them . And it took me 3 weeks to post it. And i haven't taken very many pictures since. I suck.

For what it's worth, i got few pictures because they hated the zoo. I don't know if it was the crowds or the smells or the sun or what. But they fussed the whole way, didn't want to eat, screamed in hunger, the whole bit. Well, at least C had a good time.

Oh, i forget who asked but M is always dressed in blue, and T in non-blue. Which is often green but we also have orange/brown/white/etc. Otherwise, i would forget who is who on the photos (as has already been demonstrated...) In person it is easier to tell them apart, they have their defining characteristics.

today's lofty goal is....

....to take a shower. Aim high, i always say!

I will let you know if i manage it....

always an adventure

C has been 'in bed' for half an hour -- meaning the light is off and she gets out every 5-10 minutes with some new excuse. Apparently she has run out excuses, since now she is in there yelling 'Penguin! Penguin! Penguin!' at the top of her lungs.

???

blah

blah blah blah blah blah and blah.

Lots of work here, wish i had time to do it, heh heh.

It will soon be time to talk to C a little more about death, not sure how i am going to go about that. But it is part of her play now ('he got died! she got died!') though she does not get the concept at all, she doesn't know what it means. And she's really into counting family members etc. and it bugs me when she counts brothers but doesn't even know Nicolas existed. I mean, i have talked about him briefly with her but it didn't really take. With Day of the Dead coming up, it seems a good idea to involve her in my little ritual (i put up pictures etc., not quite in the rollicking Mexican style but i do do it, okay here is a link to last year's ofrenda ) and talk about our family members that have died. But i am not sure how to answer the inevitable question of 'where are they now', which in fact she already asked me about Nicolas. And of course 'uh, on top of my dresser' didn't seem like the right answer somehow...

Julie at a little pregnant posted about this recently which puts it at the forefront of my mind today. (anyway it's better than thinking about that tenure thing) I asked dh a few days ago about this, what should we tell her. I would tell her the heaven deal, because it is easier, and i am trying to be Catholic anyway....but he is opposed to 'heaven'. His suggestion was 'tell her it's like going on a vacation but you don't come back'....i am hoping he was kidding? Oh, his second suggestion was 'search the internet for answers'. Ok, i am good at that. At very least i can ask my friends ;)