Intelligence is the ability to adapt

Today, for the first time (but undoubtably not the last) I was the mother of that child – the one who has a full on tantrum in a public place and leaves his poor mother utterly bewildered by the force of his will. It began during Cam’s swimming lesson. We’d been having a lovely time. And then eight minutes before the end of the lesson he spotted the jelly bean jar. Whining and pointing quickly escalated to full-scale screaming, while I tried valiantly to distract my son by continuing with the exercises. Humpy Dumpty, Willie Wallie and Ring-a-ring-a Rosies were all ignored by my inconsolable child. We tried hiding the jar, but it only made things worse (apparently my new strategy of hiding sweets at home has left Cam with deep seated fears that he’s never going to get any ever again). After rushing through the last bit of the lesson, during which the other two babies in the class also started crying (because clearly something awful was happening), Cam was finally given his sweets. Instantly the crying stopped. My child, who ten seconds previously, had been screaming bloody murder, was all smiles as I slunk past the parents waiting for the next class. A mortified mother? Yip, that was me.

We are no strangers to tantrums (moms of little ones – tantrums begin way before the second birthday so brace yourselves), but this was the first one I have had to deal with in public. To be honest, I just didn’t know what to do. I have a few coping strategies for tantrums. Sometimes distraction works. But despite the fact that Cam never focuses during swimming lessons because there is so much to see, after spotting those jelly beans he was suddenly utterly devoted to keeping them in sight. Time-outs are my next weapon if choice, but I couldn’t very well leave him alone in the corner of the pool. And reasoning with a seventeen-month old is an utter waste of breath. In hindsight I should have left the pool and cut the lesson short but it didn’t occur to me at the time so I just rode it out, apologized meekly at the end and got out of there as fast as I could.

Since Cam turned one, we’ve been seeing more and more evidence of what a strong-willed child he is. I am also learning that I need different strategies to Col for dealing with him. For example, if Col raises his voice Cameron listens; if I raise my voice Cameron laughs at me. So a few weeks ago I decided that instead of raising my voice or lowering my tone, I’d grab Cam’s hands, make eye-contact with him and firmly say ‘No’. My first few attempts at this were hugely successful and I was encouraged. But then that sneaky Rip caught on. Now when I grab his hands, Cameron immediately starts looking at the ceiling, bending over backwards and twisting left and right – all in a desperate attempt to avoid making eye-contact! If he doesn’t look at me, I can’t say ‘No’. (It probably didn’t help that the first time he pulled this move I started laughing. It was just so cool to see how his brain works – even if it’s working hard at disobeying me.)

I think it was Stephen Hawking who said that intelligence is the ability to adapt. So now the question is, who can adapt fastest – mother or child?

Our walking, talking toddler

The last few months have been ridiculously busy for us as we first renovated, and then moved into our new house. In the chaos, I just couldn’t find the time to blog about two major milestones that Cam has achieved – walking and talking!

Look
In his case the talking came first. We were in Tzaneen at the end of September and Cam suddenly started saying ‘Look!’ Unlike the ‘mamas’ and ‘dadas’ this was his first really distinct word, which he clearly knows the meaning of as he always points to whatever it is we must all look at. Initially he always whispered when he said it. Clearly he was copying us, as mostly we’d say ‘Look’ when we were carrying him, and therefore spoke much more softly.

In recent weeks Cam has added ‘banana’ (nanana), ‘hello’ (huh-loooo) and ‘Maria’ (Ria) to his vocab. (Maria is our domestic helper.) He’s also become a lot more intentional with his ‘Mamama’ and ‘Dada’ and is copying sounds we make (such as ‘uh-oh’). I am beginning to understand Cam-language more easily and mostly get the gist of what his grunts are communicating.

Wobbly steps, spectacular falls
Cam was 13 months old when he took his first unassisted steps on a Tuesday night in our kitchen. He tried three steps and then fell into his daddy’s arms. He then took six steps, but obviously decided he wasn’t sure about this walking business because he didn’t attempt it again for two weeks. Then on Saturday 27 October, at 14 months old, Cam suddenly started tottering about and hasn’t stopped since.

Since moving to the new house which is all one level (as opposed to three as our old place was), Cameron has gained confidence and speed. That said however, this phase has been accompanied by some spectacular falls, especially when the ground isn’t level. Only yesterday he somehow contrived to simultaneously put both feet on a rubber ducky that was lying on the floor, and went over backwards with much flailing of arms and legs.

Ah cute!
It’s incredible how much Cameron has grown, changed and developed in the last while. Watching him explore his world, learning all the time, and having huge amounts of fun is such a rewarding experience. Yesterday afternoon, after a game of last touch (which involves waddling up and down the passage giggling madly) Colin and I had to conclude that so far, the older Cam becomes, the more fun we have!

Cam’s first trip to the zoo

In celebration of Cameron’s first birthday, which is tomorrow, today we took him to the zoo for the first time. The Pretoria Zoo is the biggest in South Africa and I was pretty impressed really. For a start, it’s huge! We strolled for three hours and didn’t cover it all. They have a much bigger selection of animals than I thought they would and the whole place seems to be well maintained. The only criticism I have is that human snacks and beverages were hard to come by. You are allowed to take your own food in, which I think most people do, and so the kiosks and cafes aren’t well stocked at all. But next time we’ll just take our own picnic and that will solve that problem.

Cameron seemed to enjoy the experience but it must be said that he was more interested in the people than the animals. Second favorites were the birds and then the Gibbon monkeys, although he may just have been feeding off his dad’s enthusiasm for the latter! He loved the aquarium too.

It was a happy morning out and Col and I had a lovely time reminiscing over the last year while we walked around. But more on that tomorrow …

Standing tall

Cameron the creeping (but not quite crawling) caterpillar is reaching new frontiers all the time. What’s more, he’s gotten a taste for an elevated view on his surroundings. On Wednesday he figured out how to pull himself upright in his cot. I’d popped him in there as I ran his bath and returned to the bedroom to find him standing upright and looking utterly chuffed with himself. He looked at me, so proud, and gave this contented little chuckle. My heart just melted and it’s a precious moment I doubt I’ll ever forget.

Cameron’s first sleep over

On the 28th of March Cameron had his first sleep over at granny and grandad’s. It was our fourth wedding anniversary, and despite not really celebrating anniversaries in the past, we’ve decided that in future they need to be a much bigger deal. Starting as we intend to continue we booked ourselves into the Bohemian House – a five star guest house in Pretoria where we spent our wedding night. Between the late reception and early-bird flight to Mauritius where we went on honeymoon, we only spent four hours there back in 2009 and didn’t even see breakfast, never mind eat it! It was time to get the full experience.

And so we arrived at my parents around lunchtime with all of Cam’s paraphernalia in tow. After a quick bite to eat it was time to say goodbye. It was much harder than I thought it would be and I’ll confess to getting a little teary in the car despite telling myself firmly that I was being completely ridiculous.

But my moment of weakness passed quickly and Colin and I had so much fun. Judging from the photos and messages my mom sent, my parents had an equally delightful time with their grandson and it was smiles all round.

It was really great to spend some quality time with the hubby and I’m sure the next time I leave Cam it will be a bit easier. The only irony of the entire affair was that I slept terribly. Firstly I seem to have developed incredibly sensitive hearing in the last seven months and the slightest noise now wakes me. Secondly, Cameron has me well trained and I woke at all the times he usually does. Next time I’ll consider taking a sleeping pill so that I can get some decent shut-eye too!

A first we’d rather forget

A while ago we attended the 30^th birthday of one of my dear friends. The party was at her house and we arrived early so that we could go through Cam’s routine with him and settle him for the night before the festivities began. This all went to plan, but then I discovered that the area in the garden where the party was being held was out of range for the baby monitor. However my phone came to the rescue – I have a baby monitor app that can be programmed to call a specific number if it registers a certain level of noise. So I set that up to phone Colin and off I went to have some fun.

We’ve used the app before and while it does work, there is a bit of a delay because the app has to close and put the call through which takes a few seconds. So it didn’t surprise me that much when someone came to call me around 10 because Cameron was crying. After I’d settled him I checked Colin’s phone and to our horror we saw that the call had come through 10 minutes earlier but we hadn’t heard it over the noise. We felt absolutely awful and spent the rest of the night checking on Cameron at regular intervals to appease our guilty hearts.

The next morning we gave Cam an extra dose of love and attention, but had accepted the incident as a horrible mistake and thought of a few preventative steps to avoid it happening again. We were even doing pretty well with getting over our guilt until Colin listened to his voice messages. Sure enough there was one with the heart-wrenching sounds of Cameron crying.

While we love our smartphones and know they will be an intrinsic part of Cameron’s life, we didn’t expect him to start using them quite so soon. Furthermore, of all the exciting firsts we’ve experienced so far, that voicemail is certainly not one we want to remember!

First taste of solids

On Sunday 10 February we gave Cameron his first taste of solids. On the menu was a teaspoon of sweet potato. He loved it and has been gobbling it up every morning since!

It’s an absolute delight to see Cam experiencing this new sensation, exploring the taste and texture and learning to anticipate what’s coming every morning. Today he even made a grab for the spoon!

The meal plan that I’m using is a very gradual one which only introduces a new food every seven days. I managed 24 weeks of exclusive breastfeeding and was glad that I didn’t start solids 10 days ago when I had one of my sleep-deprivation inspired meltdowns. Just giving it that little bit of extra time meant that I was much more ready for it, and I think it was better timing for Cam too as we were both excited about it. Over the next few weeks we’ll build up to three meals a day and hopefully that will result in better sleep at night too.

Is that your final answer?

My blog seems to be taking on a game show theme, because as well as playing Sleep Survivor this week I also embarked on a new-moms version of Who wants to be a millionaire.

Firstly, a bit of background … I mentioned in my last post that Cam’s sleep patterns have been a bit erratic. To be more precise, about a week ago he started waking up hourly between midnight and 06:00. This led to a vicious cycle because he was tired when he woke up, therefore cranky all day, meaning I struggled to get him down for his day naps too.

As any mom will tell you, when something is wrong with your baby, figuring out what’s wrong is a case of elimination and educated guessing. In fact, all the baby books come with helpful checklists to assist you in this quest. Is your baby hungry, sick, tired, bored? Does he have a dirty nappy? Is the light too bright, the sun too hot, the breeze too cold? The problem with this process is that the sleep-deprived mommy brain does not always make the most logical of deductions.

And now, having set the stage, dim the lights and let’s play Who wants to be a first-time mom.

Question one: for your sanity

Why is Cameron waking so frequently at night?

a)      Hunger

b)      Sickness

c)      Teething

50/50

As Cameron has no fever and was certainly feeding well, I felt I could safely eliminate ‘B: Sickness.’ And so my first guess was ‘A: Hunger’ as many babies need more sustenance than just breast milk from about five months on. However, in my dedication to exclusively breast feeding for the first six months I decided I could handle waking more frequently at night for the next few weeks. I changed my mind about this strategy at 03:00 on Wednesday morning. I had just woken for the fourth time since going to bed at 22:00 and I knew with absolute clarity that I could not keep this up for another four weeks. What’s more, I was feeding Cameron whenever he woke at night which was leaving my milk supply severely depleted. And so the next morning I announced that I was going to start supplementing Cameron’s last feed of the day with formula, and also start solids within 48 hours. And so that afternoon I took myself off to the shops to buy a tin of formula, as well as some weaning spoons and sweet potatoes (which constitute step one of the meal plan my clinic advocates).

This decision did not come easily though and I spent the entire day in a state of utter emotional turmoil. When I tell you exactly what I was feeling you will probably think I’m a complete lunatic, but such are the bizarre workings of this mother’s mind. I felt let down by my body but also guilty for not starting solids. I was heartbroken that the end of the exclusive breastfeeding period had come to such an abrupt end. I was annoyed that my six-month plan wasn’t working out. I was desperate for Cameron to take the formula, but anxious about whether he would. I spent the day either in tears, or fighting back tears, and for the first time I was just too tired to handle Cameron. By happy coincidence we were staying with my mom-in-law (we’d been chased away by our neighbour’s renovations) so she and my sister-in-law stepped in take over.

It was such a relief to have a plan, but that night Cameron refused to take the formula. After employing various techniques over a period of two hours we gave up and resolved to try again the next day.

Phone a friend

Thursday started peacefully but at 11:30 all hell broke loose. Cam started crying inconsolably and nothing would help. I eventually phoned Colin’s mom in tears and she rushed over to drive us to the doctor. On the way Cameron fell asleep, and after his five-minute power nap was all smiles when we arrived. The receptionist which whom I had pleaded for an emergency appointment for my inconsolable child gave me a wry smile when we walked in. (Another requirement for being a mom: be prepared to look the fool.)

The doctor diagnosed a post-nasal drip, with sore ears being a nasty side effect. Armed with decongestant and nose drops, Thursday night went relatively well. We elected not to try the formula again until Cam was better to avoid adding new variables to the mix.

‘B: Sickness’ was now back in the mix.

Ask the audience

Friday night was one of the longest of my life. At midnight Cam woke to feed and simply would not go back to sleep. I spent two hours trying every trick in the book before going to wake my mom for relief. (Again by happy coincidence my parents spent Friday night with us.) She took over and had Cam down within 15 minutes. I then spent the next three hours sleeping fitfully on the couch as Cam was now sleeping in his camp cot in the lounge. I got another three hours of sleep after his 05:00 feed, and so Saturday commenced.

We had a wedding that afternoon so the morning passed in a haze of preparation. On the way to the venue I was sitting in back with Cameron who was protesting most vocally to being in the car. While trying to console him, I noticed a white mark on his lower gum, which even a novice mom such as I could immediately recognise as a tooth on the verge of making a break for freedom.

‘C: Teething.’ Final answer!

On reflection, a number of people had suggested during the week that teething might be the problem. But for whatever reason I was sure it wasn’t that and so put the now obvious teething symptoms down to something else. It is remarkable how the same facts can look completely different in light of new information!

I’m glad that we’ve finally figured out what’s wrong, but it’s a small consolidation as Cameron is struggling so much with this process. My poor little baby is in such pain and it is absolutely heart-wrenching to witness. He is struggling to feed, which means he’s too hungry to sleep, so is staying awake for hours, which means he is completely exhausted. Last night he cried non-stop for two hours and we had a repeat performance this evening. We’ve added teething gel, ice cubes, teething rings and iced water to our arsenal but are having limited success. Our house looks like a warzone, we are emotionally and physically worn out and l I just keep thinking, ‘Still nineteen teeth to go.’

Yet somehow, in the midst of all this, I can’t help feeling a frisson of excitement over the fact that my baby has his first tooth. Such is the lunacy of motherhood, that even in the pain of the process, as I rest my weary head on my pillow, I can’t help smiling a little smile of pride.

First trip to the beach

Being a new person in the world Cameron is experiencing a lot of firsts, but the slightly less obvious implication of that is that Colin and I are too. While we’ve grown a lot in caring for Cam, every now and then we have a crisis of confidence. These periods of doubt usually occur when doing something which will be observed by:

• other parents
• professionals who work with babies, or
• the general public which can contain either (or both) of the above.

In such situations we are left feeling incredibly nervous, as if expecting the Parenting Police to leap out from behind a bush and demand an explanation on why we are doing what we are doing. Of course, when one is nervous the tendency for silly mistakes and stupid decisions is greatly enhanced, perpetuating the cycle of potential judgement that we are afraid of. Cameron’s first trip to the beach was an occasion such as this …

As it was an incredibly hot day we decided to make it a short trip and so arrived armed with only a few towels, the nappy bag and of course our baby. The beach was packed so we made our way past the crowds to a section where the waves washed up gently over some low rocks. We put all our stuff in a pile on the sand, turned on the camera and prepared for the momentous moment. The first wave didn’t quite reach us but a bigger one soon came along. However as we were all focusing on Cameron and not on the waves, we didn’t see just how big it was. It caught us from the left and the right, meeting just where we were standing and causing Col to sit down rather promptly. Convinced the entire beach was watching us, we tried to ignore our blunder by cooing at Cameron who was now experiencing the wet sand on his feet. The next moment we heard someone calling us and to our horror we looked up to see that the wave had not only unseated Colin but also washed our towels, shoes and nappy bag down the beach. Burning with embarrassment, Leigh-Anne and I rushed around collecting our scattered possessions.

We made a fairly swift departure after that. Back home I spent half an hour cleaning sand off everything (quick product review – beach sand actually comes off the Baby Moov nappy bags surprisingly easily so good job there). Combined with the half an hour it took to get Cameron ready to leave in the first place, that works out to an hour of effort for 10 minutes on the beach. Not a good ratio!

To conclude, it was an utterly embarrassing experience which left us looking not only like rookie parents but also like complete tourists who have no idea how to go about a successful trip to the beach. And the real irony is that the entire exercise was more for our benefit than Cam’s; I wouldn’t say he enjoyed his first beach trip so much as tolerated it!

Spot the parents who are paranoid about sunburn.

Note the crouching father – this is pre-wave.

‘How many more of these “firsts” do I need to experience?’