All the Sun For You

A mom, two boys, a husband, and a whole lot of adventure!

Category Archives: Matthew


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When We Hurt Our Babies

I wanted to write about this earlier today because I was so devastated about it, but I couldn’t post it yet because I hadn’t told my husband what had happened.

My worst mothering nightmare up until this point happened today.  M fell down the stairs.  It hurts just writing it.

I was playing with him on the floor while his breakfast was heating up in the microwave (amaranth and plum swirl – he loves it!).  He had spent the prior 10 minutes on his back playing quietly with his toys, so when the microwave timer sounded, I figured he’d stay put long enough for me to get his breakfast out to let it cool off just a bit.  I was wrong.  I heard two thuds and I felt sick to my stomach.

We have an open staircase to our basement with a landing after 6 steps.  When I heard the thuds, I gasped and looked around the corner to where he was supposed to be.  I was hoping the sound I heard came from a couple of arguing cats.  M was not there.  That’s when I heard the cry as I ran down the steps.  From the sounds of things, he surfed head first down the stairs on his belly because there were no rolling thuds.  THANK G0D!  He was on the landing with his head up against the trim.  The first thud was him hitting the landing.  The second was his head hitting the trim.

Ugh.

He did not wail, but he cried for about 10 seconds in my arms before calming down and then smiling at me.  I checked him over for physical harm and it appears that he only has the one scuff on his forehead.  I just cannot believe that it happened, but more importantly, I cannot believe we were so lucky that he’s so unharmed.

M happily ate his breakfast and played afterwards as though nothing had happened.  But I will never forget it.  I hurt my baby today, and that makes me cry.

I told B about it prior to dinner with a friend.  I didn’t want him to notice the scuff on M’s head and ask me in front of our friend what had happened, and I certainly couldn’t lie about it.  I arrived at dinner before our friend and said, “something happened today that you need to know.  M fell down the stairs.  He’s fine, thank G0d.  I’m sorry.”  I said it with tears in my eyes, on the verge of crying.  B handled it well.  He said that my own agony about the situation requires nothing else to be said.  He is right.  Nothing he could say (and he wouldn’t say anything hurtful to me about it, but I expected him to be upset) could possibly make me feel worse than the memory I’ll have about this for the rest of my life.  I will always know the sound of those two thuds.

M, when you read this entry when you’re older, please know how sorry I am!  And please don’t blame some future bad grades or something on this incident.  Please know that I’ll be doing plenty of that on me own  😉


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Photograph

As I scurry to put the most important memories of M on this new blog, so that I don’t forget too many things, I find myself walking down memory lane.  The birth photos I posted just a bit ago had not been looked at, in their entirety, in months.  It was so fun to go back and look at them all again.  So many memories are packed into those 305 photos, it’s amazing.  I actually don’t remember too much about M’s birth because I had a scheduled C-section (breech baby) and as the drugs wore off, my memory apparently started to fade as well.  I remember everything up until being wheeled out of the delivery room – and that was when it all went blank (or rather – very, very foggy).  I honestly couldn’t remember holding M for the first time.  I knew I’d done it, but I couldn’t remember anything about it.  His birth photos brought it all back for me, and I am so grateful for them.  I am grateful for our photographer, Denise, who told me stories about each photo so that I could remember even more of the most important day of my life.

Photographs are very important to me.  Obviously, right?  I hired a photographer to attend my birth for 9 hours!  Denise and her girls have become like family to us, and we see her weekly.  A week without seeing Denise is a very sad week for me.  We are two peas in a pod – and M LOVES her.  He talks to her in a way that he does not talk to anyone else.  I truly think he knows that she was there when he was born – I think the sound of her voice is burned into his memory from that very first day.

Denise is a phenomenal photographer.  I have nothing but wonderful things to say about her and her business partner, Lindy.  They, in my opinion, are the premier baby/child/family photographers in the Central Iowa region – and you would likely agree with me if you checked out their site.  I am so lucky to have found her!  She puts us all at ease and can get photos of M that are priceless (well – they do have a price – but I’m willing to pay it!).  Denise and Lindy have their own blog and they document many of their sessions there.  M has been the topic of many a White Linen blog!  I am so grateful for this because it allows me to share M’s photos with everyone without having to post them to FB or attach them to emails, etc.

Here are M’s newborn photos.  These were taken when he was just a week old.  Breathless!  I just love them!

We had 4 month photos takes, and a few of them are actually on White Linen’s home page.  M won a contest to be on their home page – makes me very proud  😉

We had 6-7 month photos taken a while back right after Christmas, and they’re the ones up on Denise’s blog right now.  The session in her studio (teal background) could not have gone better!  I learned that the trick to wonderful, smiley baby photos is to keep your baby up until they’re over-tired and WILD.  It made for a very rough afternoon, but the photos are the best we’ve ever gotten of M!  When Denise came to the house a couple of weeks later to take the photos of M on the bed (we use that bed as our “ages and stages” prop – meaning we take his picture there at each milestone to show his growth), she pulled out her camera and took photos of him and me playing and just enjoying each other in the house.  The candid photos are by far my favorites!  I can’t stop looking at them!

Denise has offered to take “lifestyle photos” of M, B, and me.  I have always wanted a photographer to just follow me around and take photos of my favorite moments (hence the birth photos), and that’s exactly what she’ll be doing!  She wants to capture M’s bedtime routine so we’re starting with dinner (there will be split pea soup or the quinoa to capture his “I hate this food” look!) and then going into bath time, book time, and bedtime.  I CANNOT WAIT!

Denise has also offered to do the same thing for when we do our next round of IVF for M’s potential sibling, and if our RE says OK, we’ll be taking her up on this (she is such a great friend to us!).  I think it’s really important to capture the process, the tears, the joys, the heartache, the EVERYTHING that has to do with the IF struggle.  As much as I hated our IF process, I would not trade it for the world because it brought M to us (not to mention that it taught me so many things).  We are infertile – it’s part of who we are as a family – so why not document it in pictures?  Most people’s pregnancy journeys start with good old-fashioned s-e-x and a positively pink pee stick.  Yay for them (truly!)!  They may take a photo of said pee stick and then move onto fun stuff like ultrasound photos and belly measurements.  We started with blood draws, and tests, and drugs, and needles, and unpleasant ultrasounds, etc.  I want it all captured next time, even if we fail.

I’ll leave you with our family photos, which I have permission to post.  They are sprinkled with a couple of shots here at the house, as well as two in his Halloween costume.  The family photos were taken on a rather cold day in November, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at them.  As I write this entry, I am surrounded by these photos in my living room.  They make me so very happy and warm  🙂


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Birth Story

I could write all about M’s birth, but our photographer, Denise, at White Linen Photography did such a great job describing it from her perspective, that I’ll just link to her blog entry about it instead.  🙂

http://www.whitelinenphotography.com/blog/2011/08/matthew-lewis-birth-photography/

M’s birth photos (which are not at all too “up close and personal”) are used for her sample birth photos, so they are all loaded here:  http://www.whitelinenphotography.com/site/#/galleries/birth-photography/1/

Here’s a sneak peak at them:

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I Do Cook!

I may not be good at making babies, but I sure am getting good at making baby food!

Prior to M’s arrival, I committed myself to making all of his food from scratch – which is amazing because I don’t even make food for B and me.  The reason behind this is that we really wanted him starting out in life with good, natural things.  He is perfect the way he is, and as B says a lot, “why mess that up?”  So homemade baby food it is for our boy!

I do not make everything organic – simply because if I’m taking the skins off, I’m comfortable with him having regular fruits and veggies.  It’s not easy to find organic versions of everything he eats – like asparagus.  Even though he’s eating every last bit of that veggie, I buy regular asparagus because regular asparagus is better than NO asparagus.  And the boy LOVES asparagus (we do not love the diapers they produce).  The one thing I won’t be swayed on though is his meat.  He must have all-natural, hormone-free meat.  We prefer it to be grass fed as well.

Tonight, I made turkey.  We will see if he likes it.  I’m not sure he will – he’s starting to be very independent with his eating habits.  For instance, I served him split pea stew today (which was so, so good!) and he fought it like he’s never fought a serving of food before.  I was stunned and humored by his reaction!  He actually refused it, which he has never done.  I can usually coax him into eating anything by serving a bit of fruit in between bites, but not this time.  After he refused me for the final time, he made this hilarious face, leaned forward, opened his mouth, and threw it up all over his high chair cover (yes, we were out in public).  I should have been horrified, but I laughed so hard (and so did my lunch friends, thank goodness) that it hurt!

Tomorrow will be a real test, because I’m presenting him with turkey and its texture is very strange.   I think I’ll do this at home though – JUST IN CASE!

The recipe book I use is “Cooking for Baby” from Williams Sonoma, but it’s also on Amazon.com with a different cover (which makes me wonder how many other “WS” cookbooks aren’t really exclusive to them).  I have made so many things for M that it really excites me!  When you cook for your baby, they are trying so many different things much earlier than if you’d just buy prepackaged food for them.  This kid’s palate is amazing!  Here is a list of what I’ve made and his reaction to each.

 

Carrots – loves, loves, LOVES carrots!

Sweet pea puree – took 3 tries but now loves it! (Why, then, does he not love my split pea stew?!)

Spaghetti squash – no, no, no (I didn’t make him try it more than once because I tried it and thought it was awful)

Butternut squash – LOVES it!

Sweet potato puree – This is his comfort food – it is his favorite veggie.  If he’s having a rough day (few and far between), he gets sweet potatoes

Pear puree – LOVES pears of all varieties – and I love them because they fix his constipation in no time flat!

Apple puree (applesauce) – LOVES it, but we limit it because it can be binding.  I use 4 different apples in one recipe and it’s so good that I also make it for B and me

Asparagus puree – Likes it an awful lot – I dare say he loves it.  We do not love the diapers afterwards because it’s hard to tell from smell if it’s #1 or #2

Green beans with mint – Just so-so, which is too bad because we have a lot of it

Baby’s turkey – We don’t know yet

Whipped cauliflower – Loves this now that he’s used to it.  We treat it as mashed potatoes because of the texture (we are limiting potatoes)

Whipped broccoli – Just so-so

Blueberry sauce – Meh.  We need to mix it with pears to get him to eat it (which is just fine).  I used frozen blueberries and will try again but with with fresh berries

Cherry puree – Meh.  Again – we mix it with pears to get him to eat it and I made it from frozen cherries which I wouldn’t do again

Peach puree – Loves this if I don’t overcook it!

Nectarine puree – Loves this if I don’t overcook it!

Plum puree – LOVES IT!

Avocado – Did not like it, but we’ll try it again because I really want him to like it (I don’t like avocados and I know I’m missing out!)

Potato and butternut squash stew – This is his favorite food that isn’t a pure fruit.  B and I love it as well – it is awesome!

Split pea stew – HATED it (and I don’t like the word, ‘hate,’ but that’s the only way to describe his reaction)!  We will try it again later in the week

Amaranth and plum swirl – No idea because I just made this tonight.  I’m not crazy about it

Squash and quinoa pilaf – No idea because I just made it tonight.  I thought it was awesome!

Baby’s stock – We don’t serve this to him.  It’s used to make his stews and other things.  It smells really good!

 

As you can see, I do try everything I make for M.  I just don’t think it’s right to make your kids eat foods that you won’t at least try yourself (and that goes for jarred food as well.  If we were feeding him prepackaged food, I would certainly try it before giving it to him).  What I have found from trying his food is that there are things that I like as well, that I would never have tried if I wasn’t making M’s food for him.  In fact, the potato and squash stew is so good that I will make it for all of us over the years – he’s lucky I didn’t hold some back for myself  😉

I am done with his 7-8 month foods now.  When he turns 9 months old, things will get more difficult because most of those meals are not appropriate to freeze.  I will need to be cooking daily for him which is not what I’m doing now.  But – I love doing it so I’ll keep it up!


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Note of Cuteness (NOC)

As M does cute things that I desperately want to remember, I am going to post them here because after all, this blog is for him.  So here’s the first “Note of Cuteness,” or NOC for short.

M loves bath time more than anything.  He knows the minute you start taking off his outfit, that it’s time for a bath.  I was so sad the other day when he threw up all over himself, and I had to change his entire outfit and he thought he was getting a bath.  He looked so disappointed when I took him into his room to put on new clothes.  Had we not been walking out the door, I would have given him an extra bath!  But this is not my NOC tonight.

M has learned to crawl, and he’s quite efficient at it which came very quickly.  I stripped him down in his room tonight after I’d drawn his bath water (which he hadn’t seen, but had likely heard) and he immediately rolled onto his tummy, was up on his hands and knees, and took off for the bathroom.  Buck naked.  He was moving so fast that he left me behind as I put his clothes in the hamper.  I thought, “surely he isn’t headed for the bathroom.  He can’t know where he’s going.”  But he did.  He turned corners like I’ve never seen him turn corners before – he was so excited!  He’s a fast crawler for being so new at it, and this was like the ultimate race!  I wish I had a video of it.  I will strip him down in his room tomorrow night with a camera in hand!

For memories sake, here are some old bath time photos:

M with his trusty pal, Janie! She's even by his side at bath time!