this is happening...

milk & cookies

We're 9 months into breastfeeding and save the first week when I thought my milk would never come in and one bleb (that has finally healed!), we've had a generally easy go of it. But 9 months in also means we've started solids and my supply has dropped off a bit.

There are supposed to be certain foods that are supposed to help with lactation. While I was still in the hospital after delivering Aidan, my sister brought me a batch of oatmeal cookies. Oatmeal is supposed to be one of those milk production helpful foods.

Since Aidan started solids in December, I've been enjoying some oatmeal cookies doctored with two bonus ingredients that allegedly are great for milk production. I'm not 100% sure on the science* of it but even if they're as effective as Kälteen bars are for weight loss, at least they're still a tasty cookie. So tasty in fact, it's become my go-to gift for my friends new to the mommyhood.

And lest you think these are some chocolate-studded guilt trip for moms not breastfeeding, I'd bring them even if they weren't breastfeeding because they're tasty cookies! I don't mention the secret ingredients unless I know the mom is indeed breastfeeding because honestly, who needs that?

The extras, flaxseed meal and brewer's yeast, are supposed to provide extra fiber, good omega-3s and lowers glucose and cholesterol! So really anyone can have them with a little benefit on the side. 

I've made these several times and fiddled a little along the way to end up with recipe below. Think it's too much butter or sugar or gluten or whatever? Search the Internets for "lactation cookie" and there are many more varieties to try. Here's my recipe for how I make Milkless Milkful Oatmeal Cookies.

*If you're interested in the science of food, you should definitely check out Decoding Delicious by my friend Amanda, the food scientist!

Milkless Milkful Oatmeal Cookies
makes 48 cookies

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 c boiling water
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup brewer's yeast (I found mine in the health supplement section of Whole Foods. It's a 16 oz canister though which is probably enough brewer's yeast til half of the DC metropolitan area weans their 1st born children)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups oats
• 1 (generous) cup chocolate chips or raisins or Trader Joe's golden berry blend. I usually split the dough in half and make half chocolate chip and half raisin/berry

Preheat oven to 350°.

1. Pour boiling water over the flaxseed meal and mix. Set aside for 3-5 minutes to give the flaxseed meal a chance to soften. It'll look not at all appetizing and kind of like wet pulp.
2. Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar well.
3. Add eggs and mix until well blended.
4. Add flaxseed pulp and vanilla extract and mix well.
5. Sift together flour, brewers yeast, baking soda, and salt and then add to the wet ingredients. Once it's well combined.
6. Stir in oats and chips/raisins/dried berry blend.
7. Spoon a tablespoon of dough onto baking sheet, spaced 2 inches apart. I use a cookie scoop because I'm a pro like that.
8. Bake for 12-14 minutes at 350 or freeze until you want to bake the cookies. I usually bake a dozen and then freeze the pre-scooped dough in tupperware to bake off as I need/want more.
9. Enjoy!

my poo-rogative

My nearly 9-month-old son uses the potty. There, I said it. 

In fact, he's been using the potty since he was 4 months old. 

[Wait for the chorus: "what?" "seriously" and "no way!"]

It's true. I had some reservations about writing about this because I feel like people judge you when you say things like "we're practicing elimination communication." I know this because I've been on the judging end. My older sister lives in a neighborhood that has a reputation for harboring the hippie-leaning. While at one of their neighborhood parks with my nephew, I was chatting with one of the moms there and she was telling me about how her 2-year-old had been fully potty-trained since 18 months thanks to elimination communication (EC). I thought it sounded... crazy.

Fast forward to Aidan at 3 months when we started using the Bumbo baby seat. Every time we put him in the seat, he'd have a very loud and obvious bowel movement. My husband and I even started referring to it as his toilet and toyed with the idea of cutting a hole in the bottom and placing him in it without a diaper. But as it turns out, Bumbo already makes that themselves. So rather than possibly ruining our perfectly good Bumbo, we sprung for the Bumbo toilet trainer. 

Then I did some research about how one goes about potty training a baby and a huge shout out to the YouTubers of the world. Honestly, some of the videos are a little too much information but I found others really interesting and frankly, reassuring. Looks simple enough and wouldn't you know it... it was.

To get started, we bought the Baby Bjorn high chair potty seat (I know! Another potty seat. I'll explain) and a reusable, washable bed pad. Our apartment has wall-to-wall carpeting but to get started with EC, you're supposed to have some diaper-free time to observe when your baby's behaviors before they do some business. The Baby Bjorn potty came in handy for this because we were set up in our normal play area and I didn't want to alarm my baby by doing a grab and dash to the bathroom. The bed pad was for any "oops" moments in addition to the observation, but the baby potty within arm's reach was for the initial practice. 

Like the baby in this video by "EC Simplified," Aidan would happily be playing and really quite suddenly start whining for no apparent reason. I pulled him up, steadied him on the potty chair and whispering "PSSSSTTT" into his ear. Have you ever had someone whisper in your ear and felt a shudder? Well, I think the shudder is also sort of a cue in addition to the sound that triggers peeing. And just like that, he was pottying on the baby potty from the first try. 

My husband was SUPER skeptical but once he tried it for the first time himself and was also successful, he conceded that it was preferable to changing dirty diapers. 

And now, he seems to have enough control that we can have him on his changing table in his room to check for a diaper change, realize he's still clean and dry and walk (not run) down the hall to the bathroom and get him on the toilet. 

I prefer the Bumbo toilet trainer because all I have to do is flush. My husband still prefers the potty chair because we have it on the bathroom counter and my husband (who's 6 foot 2 inches) doesn't have to crouch on the ground in front of the toilet. Aidan doesn't seem to have a preference between them. 

potty time!

My mom was so happy to hear we were trying this. She said that when we were growing up, she had old school cloth diapers where you literally took miles of  single-ply fabric and fold it over and over to have the diaper the right thickness for absorbancy. And she had to hand wash it all. So there must have been a certain sense of urgency for her to get my sisters and I potty-trained. Maybe it was more common in South Korea in the 1980s or maybe my mom was super-motivated but she claims we were all potty trained by the time we started walking.

So, if you're keeping score, in addition to the elimination communication, we also cloth diaper.

"Ring ring. It's Quaker Oats calling!"

It's a little crunchy granola sounding but it works for us. And we are holding out hope that when Aidan starts walking and talking, he'll skip us middlemen and just head over to the bathroom solo. Or, at the very least, won't be as resistant once we're trying to train him like a big boy. 

We're down to 2-3 diapers a day now. While I am a stay-at-home mom, I'm trying to be realistic and recognize I can't just be staring him down every second of the day for his cues. Especially when we're out and about. Especially when we're with family and friends and he is making his rounds with the "hello" and "bye" wave he's really mastered in the last month. 

I also think it's important for us to keep him in diapers rather than go cold turkey because I've also read the opponents of early potty training. They argue that training a baby at too young an age to "hold it" can be harmful in their bladder development and also lead to accidents in the long run. I don't want him to "hold it" if he really has to go and I can't get him to the toilet in time.

That's also why we've switched to disposable diapers for overnight. One of the benefits of cloth diapering is that it's supposed to go hand in hand with potty training in the long run. The cloth generally allows them to feel the wetness sooner and the earlier children gain an awareness of their wetting makes them uncomfortable, the more eager they'll be to want to eliminate in the potty instead. 

We realized that the disposable was a better way for him to be able to sleep through the night when he did need to pee. So rather than crying for us to take him to the potty in the middle of the night -- and us not getting there in time half the time or us jostling him quite a bit trying to get off his sleep sack, his PJs and diaper quickly enough -- he might instead just have a cry out and go back to sleep.

Half the time he gets through the evening without wetting. Even when he wakes in the middle of the night to nurse, he remains dry.

I'll have to post an update in a few months after we have a walker to see how this all pans out in the end. Til then, stay tuned!

a hair-raising tale

When my little guy finally arrived, he was not so little. Born 10 days past his due date, he weighed in at 9 lbs, 7 ozs and we both had a full head of hair.

It stayed that way for us for the first few weeks.

2 weeks and my hair's messy (first day home without dad) but still very much existent!

6 weeks postpartum and a fresh haircut. had i known what was ahead...

but by 3 months postpartum, we both started to shed. 

 

Seriously looking a little sparse...

 

Aidan's hair looked pretty cute. The hair on the sides was falling out but he was maintaining a rather impressive mohawk. But me? Not as cute. So, what's a girl to do? Well, complain, for one. To my husband. To my sisters. To all of Facebook. The pity parade was basically endless.

But the more I read about it, the more it became clear what had to be done. 

BANGS!

 

It just so happened that at its worst, we were in Korea visiting my family. It couldn't have been a better place to get bangs cut in. Totally stereotypical but it really did seem like 50% of girls in Seoul had bangs. My aunt took me to a hairdresser who as it happened totally understood a new mom's hair loss woes and snipped and fluffed the best she could.

That was 5 months ago. And, as the bangs have grown out, so has my hair. Aidan's hair is growing in, too. 

8 months postpartum & we're both getting regrowth

 

So, it still looks a little crazy but proof positive that while annoying (and kind of embarassing), postpartum hairloss is just another small (and temporary) price to pay for a lifelong bundle of joy.

have baby, will travel

when you get pregnant, a lot of people will say things like "do X, it'll be the last chance you get for a loooong while after baby gets here."

for the times that "X" was "sleep in," spot on, folks. spot on. 

for the times that "X" was "travel," however, i say "not true!"

in aidan's 7.5 months, he's been quite the globetrotter. i knew before he was born that we would need to travel to south korea for my grandparents' 80th birthday celebration. so as soon as he was born and we got his social security card and birth certificate, we applied for his passport to ensure we had it in time to book our trip -- all before he was even 2 months old. since then he's logged more than 25,000 miles in the air, flown out of 8 airports, been throughout 2 foreign countries.

and you know what? it's not that bad! there are tons of tips on how to travel with a baby (this one, this one, this one to pick a few). most of them are very common sense stuff: give yourself more time, pack extra diapers, bring toys and snacks!) but sometimes you need a common sense type of list to help you get your head in the game and to feel confident. and, if you've ever left your home with your child, then yes, you too can do this.

aidan on his first flight at 10 weeks old

of course, every trip hasn't been perfect 100%. here are a few lessons from our travels:

• dress baby in cotton. especially important if you're going to be wearing your wee one in a baby carrier. even when traveling to colder climates, remember, the airport and the plane will be a room temperature 70ish degrees. with baby snuggled up against you, you'll be each other's personal space heaters and you'll make each other even warmer especially if you're hoofing it from one side of the airport to another, standing in lines, etc. we had aidan in a fleece one-piece romper on one flight and discovered during a diaper change a serious heat rash developing on his chest. pretty alarming to find in a teeny-tiny airplane bathroom 35,000 feet up in the sky. so, stick with cotton! it breathes better and you can always layer up from there. 
• kill 'em with kindness. if you're one of those travelers that don't like to talk to your seatmates on the plane, get over it. at least a little. aidan has thankfully been an easy flyer but you never know! so when we fly, we pack extra ear plugs and while we're preparing for take off, we introduce ourselves and aidan and while reassuring them that we hope for a fuss-free flight, if things get to it, we have ear plugs for their sanity. across the board, this has received chuckles and friendly remarks about how they have kids of their own. once, we even found out in our introductions that we were sitting next to a group of NICU nurses on vacation! also, check out this super neat thing some other parents did.
• use a nursing cover. not just to cover your bare boob from everyone that passes you on the plane, but also to help baby from becoming distracted during nursings/bottle feedings, shield them from the air blowing out of those overhead vents and provide a cozy bubble to help them stay asleep.
• avoid aisle seats, at all costs. it sounds like a good plan because you think you'll have easier access to the bathrooms for diaper changes but have you ever seen a baby asleep in someone's lap? they splay out. literally just limbs dangling out everywhere. and between the beverage cart barreling through (those flight attendants do not look where they're pushing!) and the other people on the plane wiggling down the aisles, no way junior doesn't get clipped. save the tears, folks. move it in.

and lastly, in terms of packing for baby, don't kill yourself if you forget something. unless you're going to a third world country or the great wild somewhere, they will sell the essentials there: diapers, food, baby tylenol.

so take advantage while the baby flies free* and go explore!

*while most airlines extend free flights to infants and babies less than 2 years old traveling in an adult's lap, for international flights, there is almost always a charge, ranging from additional taxes or upwards of 10% of an adult fare for even the youngest of flyers.

in full bluum

For Christmas, I was gifted a 3-month subscription to bluum. Their "about us" never plainly states what bluum is but the gist is it's a subscription service for product samples geared for mom and baby (sorry dads!). The monthly subscription fee of $14.95/mo gets you a mixed box of samples and full size products the bluum team "curates" for moms and for your baby.

My first box arrived today. It was supposed to arrive a week+ ago but according to an e-mail they sent out, it was delayed because:

 

We are currently putting the finishing touches on the customized goodies in your January Box! In order to ensure that we deliver our very best, there will be a slight delay in shipping. Here's why:

• Innovative matching - Expect products based on your child's age, developmental stage and gender. We took the time to get it right and we think you'll like it.
• Bluum Toddler launches (13 months+) - A bigger box filled to the brim with full-sized goodies. Full size = full fun!
• Baby got an upgrade, too! We added exciting brands and a broader selection.

We are thrilled to ring in 2013 with these new features and know it will be worth the wait!

 

So what products did the innovative matching choose for my 7-month-old son? According to bluum, Aidan will soon figure out the whole sitting thing. 

They say "soon," we say 2.5 months ago. Which is more in line with our personal baby bible, "What to Expect the First Year."

But maybe they're trying to me more inclusive? Either way, the box really didn't provide any products specifically related to Aidan's "recent" milestone of sitting independently. What did it include then? Well, check it out!

I found a retail value for each product and of course, added my 2 cents cause that's what we're all here for, right?

BabyGanics Cover Up Kisses lip balm/sunscreen - $5
-- I didn't realize my baby needed sunscreen on his lips! And I'm not sure I'd have bought it for $5 if I'd known he did. But we are headed to the winter wonderland that is Banff in a few weeks so it might be nice to have something to keep his wittle wips from getting dried out from being the coldest he's ever been...ever. The orange cream is very mild in both scent and flavor and while it's not organic as the brand name "BabyGanics" might lead you to believe, it does seem to have mostly natural ingredients.

Update! Only catch I see about this so far is that the balm isn't that slick. You have to warm it up a bit - easy enough to do on adult lips by swiping a few times, but Aidan is in full teething mode which means anything that comes towards his mouth is going to get slobbered on. For now, I'm just applying the balm on my lips first and then dabbing (quick like a ninja!) on his lips. Not sure how much product is getting on his lips but it's enough to give a little sheen so I guess that's something, right?

Crum Creek Mills soy nut mix - $0.55
-- Soy nuts? Sounds like a choking hazard for my toothless 7-month-old. Also, Crum Creek Mills sounds like a scary place... So I guess these are for me. Described as an "organic blend of slightly sea-salted soy nuts, raisins, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and chocolate chips," sounds like it could be tasty. My husband (not that bluum cares about him anyway) says he wouldn't pay money for it. The mix is predominantly soy nuts and by "slightly sea-salted," they probably meant "tastes like unsalted until the last handful." 

Udderly Smooth Udder Cream - $1.52
-- I've actually used this stuff before. They used to sell it right by the register at the drugstore and I think I bought it on a whim and the little tube lasted forever. Glad to have a new one to throw in the diaper bag.

B-Kids Twist 'n Smile Rattle - $8.99
-- looks fun for our little proto-crawler! Little guy's really into sound-making toys lately and it's a good size for little hands. Definitely plan to pack this for our trip. My husband worries that the little balls that plink about look like they'd be a choking hazard if the plastic cover broke off, but it looks pretty sturdy and we'll have to stay vigilant in checking for breaks.

Dapple dish liquid, 3 fl. oz - $2.29
-- because I should be traveling with baby-specific dish liquid? Mama does not need the extra hassle. Truly. But if you're dedicated to only washing your baby's bottles and accessories in baby-safe soaps only, it's an "airplane-ready" size. I'm just going to be the mom that washes the kiddo's stuff with the handsoap available in the airport bathroom.

Retail Total: $18.35

So, technically, you definitely get the full value (and then some) of the subscription fee with these samples. But, would I have bought any of this stuff myself? I'm thinking no except for the Udder Cream.

The rattle is the nicest product to get in the kit because it's a toy that I know Aidan will like but honestly, I wouldn't have bought it myself because almost all of Aidan's toys are gifts from his uber generous and loving family so I'm not really looking to buy more toys to add to the FAO Schwartz we call our small home. Also, I would have totally overlooked it in the store because baby stores (or the baby sections of stores) are so overwhelming and it's small.

Based on just this box, I probably wouldn't keep up the bluum subscription. But, as a gift, I dig it! Especially since we've got two more months to be wowed. Til next month!

the attack of the bleb

six amazingly easy months of nursing aidan and out of nowhere, a bleb! 

has there ever been a more apt name for an ailment of one's nipple?

i don't know how i got it and from what i'm reading (this, this and this, too!), it's going to take extraordinary measures to get rid of it. 

so, you might have just clicked over to a few of those resources i've been reading and thought to yourself, 'but royela, it doesn't seem too terrible. a warm compress! a little saline soak! maybe a sterile needle. you can do it!'

first of all. thanks for the encouragement but, i was never the 12-year-old girl looking to go rogue when my mom wouldn't let me get my ears pierced. so, i have some serious, serious reservations about this sterile needle suggestion. it doesn't matter that they state you go to a medical professional to get this done. they say "professional" and then keep plowing through offering instruction on how it'd be done at home - this leads me to believe that a small part of them is daring you to do this yourself.

"what are you? some sort of sissy?! it's just a tiny little needle. fire that bad boy up red hot and after it's good and cool, you're in business! easy peasy." 

oh. hell. no. 

so a warm compress, you say. ok. let's talk about that. first of all, i had to look it up. it as in the warm compress. what is a warm compress? i feel like you're judging me after reading that but if you've lived a relatively healthy life and the only illness or maladies you've encountered in life were tended to by an actual medical professional or your korean parents, the words "warm compress" just don't mean much.

so a warm, damp cloth? ok. why didn't you say so? what's the best way to do that? this is the part where my capable adult self kicks in and thinks, you don't need to look up how to get a cloth to be both warm and damp. i boiled some water and poured it over a small handtowel. i placed it folded neatly in a colander with a bigger bowl beneath it so the towel would get a little wet but the rest would drain off. (i boiled the water because after i read about the importance of a sterile needle, i wanted that water to be good and sterile, too.)

well, guess what. boiling water? too. damn. hot. so i grabbed another small cloth... ok, fine. i grabbed a clean burp cloth (it was just sitting right there!), folded that up to pick the too-hot washcloth out of the colander to wring out some of the burny water. still too. damn. hot. but now, this has taken a bit longer than i'd thought and my "pre-nursing" window is closing. aidan is starting to fuss about how hungry he is! i move ahead and nurse him reasoning, i'll use that warm compress for before i pump! 

well, i don't know how long your kiddos nurse for but aidan's always keeping me on my toes. this go-round he decided he really wanted to savor our together time. so by the time we were all done and he was off to play on his mat, the washclothes? still damp but you guessed it. cold!

this time, i figured, we're not doing the boiling water jazz again. i'll just microwave it for 30 seconds. zap! when i pulled it out it was nice and warm again. but not burny hot. success! in my hands. on my bare boob though? YOWSA. burny burny hot hot hot. but i caught it mid fall! so no need to go through the sterilization routine again.

i do a little hot potato toss with it for a minute and tried again. ten minutes later, with a now clammy washcloth on my boob, i'm suspicious. that didn't really feel like it did anything. but this is what i'm supposed to do. i go back to the instructions and i read how i'm to do this "several times a day." nope.

NEXT. 

a saline soak. mix up a cup of water with some salt. i can do that. but here rears the ugly head of my indecisiveness. one mug, a pyrex measuring cup and 2 different bowls later - that's when i finally got to soaking. i found a spot in the kitchen where aidan and i could see each other's faces from our respective spots but from where he wouldn't see that i had half my top down and wonder what was happening with his dinner. boob in a bowl. that happened. paints a picture, don't it?

afterwards, it felt exactly the same. instructions? repeat several times a day. 

this was thursday. guess how many times i've applied a warm compress or steeped some boob milk tea since then. 

i'm going to go ahead and assume you all guessed zero! ding ding ding! you're all amazing. 

so far, i've only managed to stick with one suggestion consistently. start nursing sessions on the bleb side. keep nursing and pumping. 

maybe i'll go pick up some lecithin as well. but that reminds me that i forgot my prenatal vitamin today. and that reminds me i forgot to give aidan his vitamin d supplement. 

BLEB! (said with full rueful liz lemon crankiness)

this kid is so lucky he's cute...