Real food vs. baby-led weaning?

We are just over a month away from that magical six-month mark when many people introduce solid food. We may wait a little longer, due to all the trouble we've had with food sensitivity, but either way it won't be long before he gets his first bite.

I'm kind of stuck, though. There are two schools of baby-feeding which both really appeal to me.

First is the real food way, as explained by Nourishing Traditions. I've seen similar suggestions online, from a "primal food" blog, for instance. These people suggest that grains, however popular, aren't the best food for a baby whose GI tract is still developing. Babies don't really digest grains very well, and they tend to cause constipation. Rice cereal, oatmeal, cream of wheat, etc. aren't the best thing to start a baby off on. Instead, they recommend egg yolk and pureed meats first -- these animal foods are more digestible, more similar to breast milk, and more nutritious. They are also high in iron -- which is important, as breastmilk is low in iron and a baby's iron stores only last six or eight months.

Second is the baby-led weaning way. This method teaches that babies should feed themselves from the very beginning: no purees at all! You wait until the baby is reaching for food on his own, and then you give him things he is able to pick up and eat. Cheerios and soft vegetables are popular. I remember my little brother would chomp on a great big carrot, scraping off tiny flecks of it with his two teeth. Choking isn't a big danger (though of course you should always supervise a beginning eater) because babies will push food out of their mouths with their tongues at the age when their gag reflex is undeveloped. The pincer grasp appears around the time the tongue-extrusion reflex disappears and the gag reflex develops -- so when the baby is able to feed himself, it is safe to let him have food. Feeding purees with a spoon can force a baby to take food into his mouth before he's ready, and so choking is more likely.

This system really appeals to me because it allows a baby to learn to eat instead of having food ladled into him by someone else. Babies are born with a good sense of appetite -- which is why you can't overfeed a breastfed baby who nurses on demand. I would like to preserve that instinct the best I can. I myself rarely eat when I'm not hungry, but many people are in the habit of just munching away because it's "time to eat" or because the food is there. I think that attitude is encouraged by spoonfeeding, while baby-led weaning encourages an attitude of eating when you're hungry.

Here's the problem: egg yolk and pureed meat are hardly the kinds of things a baby can feed himself. (I'm also not going to introduce egg yolk too early, as eggs seem to be an issue for baby when I eat them. Most likely it's the more allergenic white that is the problem, but I don't want to take chances.) But -- as I know from experience -- vegetables are not easily digested. (If you've ever changed a six-month-old's diaper, I don't think I need to say any more.) Neither are grain foods like Cheerios. Do I give him well-cooked pieces of beef and chicken? Or is it okay to give dairy so young? Or are there are any vegetables that digest more easily than others?

All right, real-food types, baby-led-weaning types, and everyone else: what do I feed baby first? In time, of course, he'll be eating what we eat, but what are good starter foods? I want foods that are digestible (so as close as possible to breast milk), hypoallergenic (for a boy who seems to react to eggs, tomatoes, onions, and cabbage SO FAR), and easy to pick up and gum on. Any ideas? Of course I'm going to make all his food myself, so anything you can think of is a possibility.

Tell me, what should I put into this adorable little mouth?

Back to work

I never thought I'd be saying this...

...but I'm looking forward to going back to work.

After all, you all know I believe in mother-baby inseparability. And you know I love being a stay-at-home mom.

But it's been really wearing lately. Baby's antsy if we stay home all day, so I end up walking around the neighborhood to entertain him only to have him go back to being antsy when we get home. John is busy all the time now that he's started his masters program. Generally I don't have the car, so I just haven't been getting out much.

It kind of came to a head for me when John was down in Alabama doing his grad school orientation. I stayed within these four walls most of the five days, walking in the sweltering heat to the library about once a day. John would call and tell me all about what he was doing: "I had dinner with this eminent professor! It was lasanga with ice cream for dessert! Then we had a seminar! Tomorrow we tour the library!" That kind of thing. And then he would ask, "So what have you been doing today?"

"Um. Uhhhh.... Today I ate some rice. I played with the baby. Then I walked around jiggling the baby because he was cranky. Oooh, and then I got really wild and went to the grocery store! I bought a banana, so exciting!"

These things aren't as dull to experience as they are to describe. So part of it is just the desire to have something to report, something that others will consider worthwhile. And I wonder if I might value what I do all day a little more if I were part of a community that valued the same things. John does value what I do, but I can tell he does not find my rundown of the day exactly fascinating.

Anyway, school starts tomorrow and I feel ready for it. I'm bringing the baby with me each day, which I think is good for both of us. I get to go to work without leaving him, and he gets to see a lot of new people and get a change of scene -- something he's been craving a lot lately. Teaching Latin II is hardly the pinnacle of the intellectual life, but I do enjoy it and find it interesting. Finding the best ways to explain these concepts can be an intellectual challenge. It's not that I don't use my brain at home, but I value the opportunity to exercise different mental muscles than my usual ones.

The biggest thing for me, though, is the community. I love my coworkers; they are a wonderful bunch and have a great network. At my school, you don't just clock in, teach, and go home -- you're always trading life stories and teaching tips with the other teachers. I've missed that. And I don't feel it's really fair for John to be out all day, being so many things to so many people, and then come home and have to be everything for me because I haven't talked to an adult all day. These days he gets home and logs on to his online class, and I have been feeling very jealous because I'm longing for grown-up time, and he gets it and I don't.

I don't think all moms should go back to work. Most don't have such a great situation as I have, where I am teaching one class a day and able to bring my son. And if it weren't for the money, I might find my fulfillment in nonwork activities, like volunteering or clubs. As it is, though, everything is rolling together just right, and I am ready for this new change.

A couple of pictures to make you smile:

We got this crib on Craigslist for $40! Marko likes it so much he likes to play in it in the daytime too.

When did he get so long? At last measure he was 24 inches long! That's five inches taller than when he was born.

In praise of fat

When I started cutting dairy out of my diet, one of the effects was that I was eating a lot less fat. I joked to John that I would probably lose a lot of weight if I kept it up! It's a joke because I really don't care if I lose weight or not. I'm still about 10 lbs. up from my pre-pregnancy weight, but I'm still a healthy weight so I don't really let it bother me. (I'm more concerned about the flabbiness of my abs -- yikes!)

But less than a day in, I was already suffering. I ate and ate and ate -- carbs. I wanted fat. The thing about carbs is that an hour or two after you eat them, you're already starving again! (Particularly for me, since I have a very fast metabolism.) Rice milk is sweet, so it seems like it's hitting the spot, but pretty soon you have to go drink more because it doesn't really satisfy. I craved sugary food. I was eating much more than I usually do, feeling hungry all the time, and getting headaches.

Once I added dairy back in, I felt better almost instantly. There are so many different dairy products that you can eat, in so many different combinations. But I also found I was satisfied much more easily. A half cup of rice with sour cream and cheese is so much more satisfying than a half cup of rice with sugar and cinnamon, or with just salt. I ate less frequently. I made a batch of shortbread -- just flour, butter, and sugar -- and really enjoyed it, but after eating a few pieces, I found I didn't want to eat any more. I was satisfied. This is pretty amazing coming out of a person who has been known to polish off a whole box of cookies in a sitting. (Not a proud moment. John's comment: "It was like a wheat harvester.") I have a very hard time stopping eating sweets. But that shortbread, rich as it was, was satisfying even though it was comparatively low in sugar.

All this makes sense if you understand a bit about fat. Fat contains 9 calories per gram, whereas protein and sugar both contain 4 calories per gram. So, if you're eating fat, it's true that you should eat half as much. However, it also is slower to digest and sits heavier in your stomach, making you feel more satisfied with less.

Fat also carries flavors throughout the food. Have you ever added curry to a chicken dish that contains a little fat? The curry gravitates toward the fat, turning it bright yellow. The same holds true for most spices. Everyone knows that the cure for a burning mouth after eating a jalapeno pepper is a drink of whole milk. The fat in the milk carries the spicy oils away from your tongue.

This is why low-fat foods can often be very deceptive. In order to make them palatable while removing all the fat, the manufacturers usually add sugars. Why are we finding sugar in spaghetti sauce, in lasagna, in crackers? Because sugar tastes good, so it makes the food palatable despite the lack of flavor-enhancing fat. Next time you want to buy a low-fat substitute for a high-fat food, read the ingredient label and see what they've added to make up for the fat. Chances are, the grams of sugar will be much higher even though there are fewer grams of fat. Other commonly added ingredients are carrageenan, a thickener; MSG; and extra salt.

Dieters often cut out fat in the assumption that dietary fat produces belly fat. But that's not necessarily true. High blood sugar often produces belly fat, as the body tries to dump unwanted glucose by converting into fat. And high blood sugar often comes from the rush-and-crash cycle we get when eating too many carbs -- something dieters often do in the urge to quell their feelings of starvation and deprivation. A mix of carbs (particularly complex carbohydrates), protein, and fat will help stabilize the blood sugar, as carbs enter the bloodstream first, protein enters later, and fat enters last.

I read recently that some tribes of North American Indians knew of a disease called "rabbit starvation," wherein a person could eat all the (lean) rabbit meat he wanted and yet still feel constantly hungry and eventually starve. This is anecdotal, of course, but it jives with my experience of eating almost no fat and being hungry all the time.

If fat is to blame for all the obesity and high blood pressure and heart disease in this country, why is it that those disorders are rampant now and were rare 100 years ago, when people 100 years ago were eating much more fat? I don't have an answer, but I have a feeling that a more balanced diet, low in refined sugar and other artificial foods, is probably much healthier than a diet composed of modern, low-fat health foods.

This would also explain why the French and the Italians are so healthy, despite eating loads of foods our American sensibilities suggest are "bad for you." There are whole diet books to help us "eat like the French." But it isn't hard: eat real butter and enjoy it, and you won't feel the need to keep eating and eating. Enjoy bitter, sour, and savory flavors, and you won't crave sugar all the time.

Which fats should we be eating? Probably a varied sampling. Some, but not excessive, saturated (solid) fat; and some unsaturated (liquid) fat, balanced between omega-3's (found in fish and flax oils) and omega-6's (found in most other vegetable oils). The one fat no one should be eating is "trans" fat, which is unsaturated fat made into a solid by artificial means. The body doesn't recognize it, and it seems to cause all kinds of harm. Luckily it is going out of style now that we know how harmful it is. Still, it's best to avoid margarine and other highly processed fats. Peanut butter is another place where hydrogenated fats are found, and I'm afraid it's a habit I have trouble kicking. I was raised on it, and all-natural peanut butter just isn't the same!

One last benefit to fat: it carries the fat-soluble vitamins, such as A, D, E, and K. These can be found in fish oils, butter, vegetable oils, or the fat in wheat germ, but they can't be obtained in the diet without at least some fat. (However, vitamin D is also produced by the skin, and vitamin K by intestinal bacteria.)

I'm not saying you should be going out and eating spoonfuls of lard as a health food. But a reasonable amount of fat -- for instance, the amount that occurs naturally in food -- is part of a good diet for a normal, healthy person. Vegetables go down well with butter, which also aids in the absorption of its vitamins. Meat tastes better when not patted completely dry. A little olive oil is delicious on a salad, and complements its nutrition. Whole milk tastes better than skim, and it provides more vitamins.

Bon appetit!

Edited to add these links, suggested by Ryan:

The New York Times: What if it's all been a big fat lie?
Mark's Daily Apple: Fats
Four Hour Work Week: The science of fat loss: why a calorie isn't always a calorie

The first one, in particular, I highly recommend. Lots of information I hadn't heard before.

Elimination diet results

My last post was about cutting out dairy in the hopes of helping the baby like nursing again. With no idea what the problem was (reflux? stomachache? behavior issue? funny taste?) I had no idea where to start, but I have heard that people have had good effects with cutting out dairy, so I decided to go with that.

A few days later, I decided the smart thing would be to go a step further and go on a total elimination diet, cutting out anything that could possibly cause a problem. Elimination diets have three levels of severity.

1. Cut out common allergens and irritants. The most common problem foods for babies are milk, wheat, corn, peanuts, cruciferous vegetables (like broccoli and cauliflower), onions, garlic, spicy foods, tomatoes, chocolate, citrus, caffeine, and soy. The last two weren't really an issue for me because I don't like them anyway.

2. Cut out anything you've ever heard of anyone being allergic to.

3. Cut out everything except for a few well-tolerated foods. This is what I did, when I started this diet. It's important to note that you can't do this for an extended period of time -- variety is the spice of life as well as being important for your health. So you wait for the symptoms to subside and then add foods back in, one at a time. It takes 2-24 hours for a food to affect the baby, so I could only reintroduce one food a day if I wanted to be sure I knew what the problems were.

I kept a careful journal of everything I ate and everything the baby did. I kept track of when he was nursing, how many diapers he was using, how fussy he was, how much he slept, and any other notable symptoms like spitup and diaper rash. I tried to connect problems we had with foods that we ate. John was out of town doing his grad school orientation, so I really had the freedom to eat whatever, whenever, and do nothing but watch the baby. I didn't even have the computer to distract me, since John brought it with him.

Here's a brief summary:

Monday: I ate what I usually do but cut out dairy. Marko was grouchy in the morning, happy in the middle of the day, and horrible in the afternoon. I noticed that the screaming started a short time after I had had a bean burrito with salsa. He'd been nursing fine, but that time I tried to feed him, he seemed to be interested, but then he spit out the milk and screamed. So, no more salsa. I put onions, spicy foods, and tomatoes on the blacklist along with dairy.

Tuesday: I ate what I usually do, but without dairy, onions, spicy foods, or tomatoes. This meant I ate a lot of eggs and pbj's. Eggs and peanut butter are the two foods that give me acid reflux. I have no idea why. In any event, I had reflux and the baby was as grouchy as ever. Every nursing session was a struggle. So, either the diet wasn't helping, or it hadn't had time to work yet. I decided to go to level 3 the next day and cut out almost everything. I really wanted to know if food was a contributing factor or not.

Wednesday: The breakthrough day. I ate oatmeal, rice, rice milk, potatoes, and chicken. I was starving and fighting food cravings all day. But it worked. Marko was much happier, though he had three shortish screamy periods. All of them were after eating chicken, but he was also tired for all of them. So I wasn't sure about the correlation, especially as chicken is supposed to be very mild. I did cut it out though.



His diaper rash was absolutely gone when I changed his diaper Wednesday morning -- which was a huge success sign for me! However, it was back by late afternoon. I'm not sure what that means, because I don't know how long it takes a food to cause a diaper rash. There could be a lag of hours or days -- I just don't know (and I had no internet, so I couldn't look it up either). But another physical sign was spitup: he barely had any -- a huge improvement, as he'd been getting very spitty lately.

Thursday: After a lot of pondering, I decide to add dairy back in. I do know that it can take much longer than that to rid dairy from the system, but looking back, I remembered that the one day where he was so good, the day I thought I was cutting out dairy, I actually ate a ton of cream cheese because I forgot that it was a dairy product. Yep, I'm oblivious. So I decided to add it in, particularly so I could have a protein and fat source instead of living completely on starches. The cheese was delicious, and I felt much better (more on that in another post!).

The effects on the baby remained good. He hardly cried at all the whole day -- a VAST improvement. On Thursday morning, I read through the record of the previous day and realized that we'd had one really good nurse every two hours or so. So I stopped offering nursing so often and tried only every two hours. That helped a ton -- he nursed happily each time. Once I offered five minutes too early and he turned away screaming, but five minutes later he was all for it!

(Note: The every-two-hours schedule is working great now, but it didn't work at all a month ago. Then, he wanted to nurse every 45 minutes. I think my milk supply was down back then (it was right after we'd gotten back from our trip) and he was building it back up. Now, the milk supply is finally restored a bit and so every two hours is working fine. I also wonder about the reflux issue -- babies with reflux tend to eat very frequently. So if that was a problem before and is better now, no wonder he can go longer.)



Friday: I added back in bananas and apples -- because I can't go forever with no fruits and veggies -- and Marko was great again. No spitup, rash fading again, no trouble nursing, and happy almost all the time.

Saturday: Reintroduced peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I know that's a lot of ingredients, but I almost always eat them together, so I figured it was worthwhile to try them together. If there was a problem, I could cut the pbj's out and add each ingredient back in, one at a time. But there was no problem. Marko was great, we enjoyed our day, and his diaper rash was pretty much gone again. A couple times he was a little reluctant to nurse, but I took him out on the back porch and nursed him in the fresh air (he loves to be outside) and he was fine.

Sunday: A lot was going on, since John came back home, bringing his brother along for dinner, so I ended up eating a number of different things. At lunchtime I had eggs. By about four o'clock he had spit up a number of times, although he wasn't upset. So I decided to cut the eggs out again. After all, they do give me reflux. I'm not sure why eggs would be an issue, but why push it? I cut them out again, and won't be reintroducing them (except in bread, which seems to be fine) for at least another week or so. For dinner, I had hamburgers, with lettuce and a tiny bit of mustard. Those didn't seem to cause any ill effects that I could tell. Again, Marko was great. He was delighted to see Daddy and quite willing to make friends with his Uncle Thomas. I was so glad to see him so easy to please!

On Monday I stopped keeping the journal. I had a really busy day, driving my brother-in-law to Christendom and picking up a crib I got on Craigslist. But Marko was a little trooper. He slept in his carseat, ate a ton at more-or-less two-hour intervals, and didn't cry a bit! A lot of people at Christendom asked how he was doing, because they've been following his issues on Facebook, and I was proud to report how well he's been feeling and acting!

I'm reintroducing one food a day, and keeping a record of which food I introduced on each day so I am able to retrace any problems. But so far, we're doing great! I still don't know for sure whether food was an issue (though I think it must have been, seeing how quickly I saw results) or what the food might have been (though eggs do seem implicated). But we're plugging along, and as long as I have a happy baby, I'm not worried!

Now I only have to worry about the sleep he's getting. Now that he's rolling over, he's always waking himself up. Ah well, a mother's work is never done!

Non-dairy ideas?

Marko had a wonderful day Friday. He nursed like a champ, smiled pretty much the whole day, and hardly even fussed. From Thursday afternoon to the middle of Saturday morning, he was just perfect. I had tried a number of things those couple of days, from cutting out all dairy to eating oatmeal (supposed to increase milk supply) to working on our latch. Since the change was so instant and dramatic, I credited the techniques I'd been using to bring him to the breast. I went back to having cereal and milk for breakfast and didn't worry about anything else.

However, by mid-morning on Saturday, the good times were over. And by Sunday evening, we were back in the "absolutely no nursing" zone. I noticed a few things, including a slow let-down on my part (but only sometimes, and it might be triggered by the stress of him screaming at me ... hard to tell cause and effect) and a lot of spitting up on his part. When he was a newborn, he almost never spit up, but the amount he spits up has been slowly increasing for awhile. On Sunday he spit up quite a bit. I figured it might be because he is rolling around so much, but on the other hand, it does bring up the reflux question again.

Today I was thinking about all this while deciding what to have for breakfast: raisin bran with milk (which was what I wanted) or oatmeal (which I am not crazy about)? I remember hearing that 50% of reflux cases are improved by the mother cutting out casein, the protein in cows' milk. So I chose oatmeal, and furthermore have decided to do a few days' trial where I cut out cows' milk and see how I do.

So far, here's what I've got:


Baby has nursed fine the past couple of times and seems happy at the moment. Not much to go on, but it's a start. If I don't see improvement in a week or so, I'll probably give it up.

Because here's the thing: I love dairy. A lot. My favorite foods are ice cream, butter, sour cream, yogurt, and chocolate milk. Oh, and cheese ... all cheese ... all the time. If milk were alcohol, I would definitely I have to admit that I have a problem. When I make chocolate chip cookies, it's all I can do not to eat them once I get to the butter-and-sugar stage, and leave the rest of the ingredients out. When I make roux for a soup, I always just want to eat the roux. It's bad. At the moment I eat a lot of fat, because baby needs fat and so I crave it inordinately, but the only fat I really like is butterfat. I could eat butter straight, but who ever ate beef tallow straight? Olive oil is okay, but it doesn't really hit the spot the same way.

So I'm looking for ideas. I'm making rice milk at the moment, although I'm quite aware it's lowfat and not going to satisfy my butter craving. To start you off, I offer one milk-substitution recipe, which I am quite proud of having invented when John was on an elimination diet.

Cream-free cream sauce for soup & pasta

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon fat, preferably a solid fat: chicken fat, beef tallow, lard, shortening, coconut oil, or ghee (clarified butter -- contains no lactose or casein)
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup liquid: stock, wine, or a mixture of both -- it should be strongly flavored to match your soup

Melt the fat over medium heat. I used chicken fat when I invented it, and haven't tried anything else (though I may try ghee). Mix in flour to make a roux. Make sure the flour is totally incorporated. I sometimes brown the roux a bit; if you do this you will have a darker sauce. Then add the liquid, a little at a time, whisking after each addition and cooking a bit until you see no lumps before you add more. Stop when it's the consistency you like -- it thickens a little as it cooks.

Add this to soups calling for cream, or use as a base for a cream sauce over pasta. (My award-winning (i.e. both John and I like it) sauce for noodles is this cream sauce with onions, garlic, and chicken.)

Any other ideas? I would like recipes that contain some fat if possible. I don't generally eat soy; I don't care for it and I don't think it's all that healthy. But I'm not vegetarian or vegan, so meat is fine. So are eggs, which will probably be my salvation as I try to get by on this budget. However, I would love to hear your favorite nondairy recipe, whatever it is!

Intellectual life of a stay-at-home mom

I have always heard about stay-at-home moms feeling stuck, trapped, stagnating, or what-have-you. That they wish they could go back to work or get out of the house just to get some adult conversation -- to feed their intellectual life. But this just isn't a problem I have -- not yet anyway.

First off, there's the internet. Savior of stay-at-home moms everywhere. We can debate the Big Issues or write poetry while listening for the baby to wake up from his nap. I recently joined Twitter and have a fun time keeping up with all the conversations. (Though at times I do have to step away from me... I feel like I'm getting ADD just trying to absorb it all.) Then there's this blog, Enchiridion, and the many blogs I read -- mom blogs, cooking blogs, political blogs, religious blogs. And, of course, Facebook.

Through the internet, I've been able to research many issues that are dear to my heart. Breastfeeding is big these days, perhaps because I spend such a large percentage of every day nursing! There are so many issues within that -- the politics, the unethical practices of formula companies, the roadblocks that keep women who want to nurse from being successful. Childbirth is another -- I get very worked up when I hear of various situations where women are denied their rights when it comes to the medical care they receive. I think a lot about women's rights and what, exactly, that means and should mean. I think about food: what constitutes nutrition and what the political pressures are that make our food system the way it is instead of the way it should be.

I also can be part of a community with many other mothers. I watch babies a little older than mine to see what I can expect. I watch babies a little younger than mine so I can reminisce. I trade advice with others. It is amazing how much help I receive when I ask for it.

I get to practice my writing skills, do research, and analyze different opinion pieces to form my own opinion. I am way more educated about many parenting issues than I was a year ago.

And yet, even aside from the internet, my intellectual life is alive and kicking. I'm not just counting wet diapers and timing naps -- I'm also trying to see through the eyes of my baby and figure out why he cries or what bothers him so much about nursing. I'm weighing various parenting decisions and choosing the best for our situation. I'm figuring out ways to make ground beef stretch for more meals, or new recipes using the same five ingredients I used the night before. I'm keeping a constant finger on the pulse of our laundry hamper and working out when I need to do each kind of load. I'm trying to make our tiny apartment look nice without spending any money. I'm finding ways to make a two-week grocery supply cost under $70. I'm price-comparing powdered detergent with liquid. I'm a cook, laundress, maid, nanny, pediatrician, nurse, lactation consultant, child psychologist, interior decorator, gardener, and mathematician.

But my favorite part of my intellectual life is my husband. I'm lucky enough to have found a very intelligent man who comes home from a 12-hour day with enough energy to expound on the news or the sermon. When I was pregnant, we were both too exhausted to talk much, a lot of the time. I came home from work and just wanted to put my feet up and surf the internet on my laptop. John got home and opened up his laptop and we would spend time together, but only in a parallel sense. Sometimes we'd get really far out and watch a movie.

But now, every evening around eight o'clock, baby, Daddy, and I take a walk around the apartment complex. We watch the sun set and baby kicks in our arms and starts to feel sleepy as he watches the trees go by. As we walk, we discuss all kinds of things. Recent topics have ranged from the taxonomy of insects to Calvinism. Last night we stayed up till midnight figuring out that many of society's problems come from a false dichotomy between the soul and body. But another evening we might spend making parodies of song lyrics and trying not to wake the baby with our laughter.

I'm two years out of college, and in those two years my intellectual life has never been so alive as it is now that I'm staying home. Instead of frying my brain trying to do the same thing all day, I'm free, as Chesterton put it, to cultivate all my second bests.

Notes

A couple things to share:

1. Marko is already doing better, thanks to all the advice I got from around the internet. People from Facebook, Twitter, and the blogosphere all gave me wonderful tips. Someone even retweeted me so that total strangers dropped in on my Twitter feed to help me out! Such kindness. In any event, he has been happier than a clam today, full of smiles and love ... and eating a lot. :)

2. I guest posted on this blog, Diary of a First Child. It's a good blog, why not go there and read it? As for my own post, it's about baby poo, so only read it if you really want to.

3. I am finally posting again at Enchiridion. I'm hoping to lure a few of my old followers back... so if any of you were missing that blog, check back. I'm hoping to manage to post there at least weekly from now on.

4. Marko is reliably rolling over from back to front! He hasn't mastered front to back yet. The problem is, if I'm around, he'd prefer to lie on his back and watch me ... so I had to leave the camera running on the bedside table and watch stealthily to see if he'd roll. After several minutes of film, he actually did.