Notes on the life, times, and development of Miss Zoë Bromage, as recorded by her mother. Also includes minor notes on updates to this website.

Tuesday, October 31, 2000

Another word! This time it was very clear what she said and why she said it. She said, and I quote, "Gink." She then indicated her cup (which, convieniently, had something in it). She wanted a drink, and used the word I always use for anything in the cup, "drink". She's going to be a real little chatterbox. Gee, can't imagine where she'd get that quality....

:: posted 31.10.00 :: link

Yes, I know the JavaScript date indicating Zoë's age is acting weirdly. I just haven't worked out how to fix it, and it seems to be limited to Internet Explorer.

:: posted 31.10.00 :: link

We took Zoë to the Parent-Child Expo today. It's a large convention that's held every year in Melbourne, and all sorts of people set up booths. Hospitals, doula services (I grabbed one of their pamphlets, although I'm not pregnant at the moment and don't intend to be for a while yet), midwifery services, nanny services, toy stores, clothing stores (maternity and baby stuff), people like the Nursing Mothers Association, VicSwim (governmental water safety and information group), Baby Massage Association, various playgroups and toy libraries, baby furniture stores... well, you get the idea.

We went last year when I was pregnant with Zoë and bought a couple of toys and some assorted equipment and a baby lambskin. This year, we got Zoë two toys, a book, and a bottle of unscented baby massage oil.

Funny thing about that oil. When she saw the bottle and heard me say "massage" she lifted her foot. That's what she does when I get ready to give her a massage. I show her the bottle of oil and say, "Would you like a massage?" and she raises her foot because that's always where we start the massage. She's a smart little cookie.

The other cool thing about the expo was the mini petting zoo. I admit that I was as excited as she was because I love animals of all descriptions, but it was so good to take her and let her see them. The had sheep, goats (including two tiny little kids that were so amazingly cute!), a pig, a baby cow, rabbits, and a bunch of chickens and ducks (and a wombat, but it was sleeping and in a side pen where you could look but not touch). The little cow nibbled Zoë's fingers, and the baby thought that was just hysterical. She also loved the goats and the wooly sheep. She was surprisingly gentle with them, and didn't try to grab any animal. Perhaps all of our admonitions to be gentle with the cat is making some impact on her.

Later in the day, her grandfather and great-grandfather came over to install a safety device for our stairs. The upper landing has a guard which has a rather big gap on the bottom, big enough for a baby to wiggle through and fall. So they made a barrier and installed it, and also brought the big cot (crib), since Zoë's smaller cot is getting just a bit too small and she can get out of it. So far she hasn't hurt herself getting out, but it's time she was in the big cot anyway. She'll stay in our room for a while yet, until she's sleeping all night most of the time, and then, maybe, someday, she'll move into her own room.

:: posted 29.10.00 :: link

People always seem to think that babies prefer bland food. Not my Zoë. She has always refused to eat anything bland, from the beginning of her experiments with solid food. In fact, she likes garlic, onions, chili, and other "spicy" things.

Last night we had pizza, and we got a small garlic and cheese foccacia for Zoë. I had some of it and it was definitely very garlicky and highly spiced. Zoë loved it! She ate quite a lot of it, and didn't even have garlic breath...

:: posted 27.10.00 :: link

Zoë fell asleep in her playpen/cot. The amusing thing is that she fell asleep sitting up, with her head leaning against the mesh side. She wasn't tired. Not even a little bit. She was just resting her head for a minute, that's all...

:: posted 26.10.00 :: link

While writing the previous entry, I had Zoë on my lap, but only up until the point where she deleted it as I was typing. She was sitting with me as she often does, as I was writing, and she insisted on touching the keyboard. She knows she's not supposed to do this, but she sometimes does it anyway (she's not yet a year old, how much self-control can she possibly have?). I told her "no" twice but she persisted and eventually managed to hit some combination of keys that brought up the "history" window in the browser and deleted my unposted entry.

Naturally, I was not pleased. I put her in the cot/playpen next to the desk, which she didn't like much at first. The simple fact of the matter is that there are rules regarding my computer and desk, and when she can't obey them, she has to go elsewhere. She yelled about it at first, but soon decided that playing with toys was preferable to complaining and she played happily for a while as I finished the blog entry.

When I finished, I put her in the sling and gave her a cuddle, and then waited while she yelled, squirmed, and wiggled in an attempt to avoid falling asleep. I figured she was tired, because normally she does respect and understand "no" fairly well (as well as can be expected of a baby who isn't a year old yet). When she starts grabbing everything in sight despite being told "no" on some items and then repeats the grab in the face of disapproval, it's a good bet that she's tired. She's sound asleep now in the sling, having lost her battle to stay awake forever and ever, lest she miss something terribly important while she's snoozing.

One of my peeves is that some people seem to think that "positive discipline" and "non-spanking" means "non-discipline". There's also a perception that because I don't want to control my child's behavior but shape it and teach her, ultimately, how to control her own behavior, I'm inclined to let her do anything she wants any time she wants and grow up a mannerless delinquent.

In fact, I'm a strong believer in discipline. The word comes from the word "disciple". It means "to teach". I am very aware of shaping her behavior and teaching her what's appropriate and what's not. I'm also a big believer in consequences. The consequence of messing with my keyboard (other than annoying me and making me re-write the previous entry) was that she wasn't allowed to sit on my lap any more. I didn't have to slap her hands to make my point, and I didn't have to raise my voice or tell her she was bad or anything else negative. I just put her in her own area until I finished, and then helped her go to sleep (which is really what she needed).

So, if you're one of those who think "I don't hit my child" means "I don't discipline my child", please rethink it (there are lots of information sites on the links page if you want to know more). I dislike ill-mannered children as much as anyone else does, and after all the things I've been through in my own life (some of it the direct consquence of having been badly and negatively parented), I take this job pretty seriously. I'm very aware of bringing up this child to be a productive, self-controlled, functioning member of society, which is why we're dedicated to positive parenting. We want a positive child who becomes a positive adult.

As it happened today, the discipline was pretty simple. Can't behave here, you can go where you don't have to control yourself or your urge to handle everything in sight. When I finish what I'm immediately involved in doing, I'll help you fall asleep, whether or not you're aware that you need to sleep. And when you wake up, my darling girl, you'll be much happier and much better able to keep your hands away from things you shouldn't be touching. Problem solved.

:: posted 25.10.00 :: link

Food is fun. Zoë was fairly disinterested in food other than breastmilk for a long time. There were a few kinds of jar babyfood she'd eat without a fuss, but mostly she didn't like the stuff. If I prepared it from scratch she'd usually eat that without complaint, which just goes to show she's got good taste. Also, she has demonstrated from very early on a definite preference for rich, flavorful, and spicy foods and refuses to eat anything too bland (which is fair enough; I don't like bland food, either).

Her latest favorites include scrambled eggs, bread (all sorts, including bagels), cereal (adult cereal without milk, self-fed), carrots, potatoes, zucchini, chicken, carrots, rice, minced beef, tomatoes, yogurt (or yoghurt, as you wish to spell it), and grilled cheese sandwiches (although she's not keen on eating cheese all by itself).

Really, she'll try most things, and she likes the homemade soup and stew that I make as well as having little tastes of other things we're eating, including pizza (mostly just the crust, or, as my best friend says, "pizza bones") and chinese food (just the veggie bits and sometimes a little fried rice).

Things she specifically dislikes include anything bland, most jar babyfoods, corn, and peas. There may be other things she doesn't like, but so far I haven't encountered them. She's generally not a fussy eater, so long as the food has some flavor.

Oh, yes, and while she's definitely still a breastfed baby, she's decided that things in cups are good. She's learning how to tip the cup up properly finally, and she recognizes the word "drink". She'll drink water, juice (all sorts, but she seems to like apple juice the best), and baby formula (I use a followup formula) from the cup (and she still won't take a bottle; she never would). She also begs sips from anything the adults around her are drinking, including coffee, Coke, and other things babies shouldn't drink (and we don't let her have these things, although I admit I've let her have a little sip of decaf coffee, which, surprisingly, she seemed to like).

So I think it's safe to say we're doing well with the eating, and now that she's got a tooth, think of the adventures she can have using it on things...

:: posted 25.10.00 :: link

Saturday was a big day for our darling girl. First, she finally got one of those teeth through! I felt it when she gave me a kiss and she nibbled on my lip. It's the lower right front incisor, and she's almost eleven months old, so all I can say about it is "Well, it's about time!"

She also said her first word. Well, not really her first, I guess. She's been saying Mama and Daddy for a while, but I don't count that as speaking because pretty much all babies make those sounds at some point as they're learning to make speech sounds. It's only recently she started to say "Mama" and "Daddy" as names that refer specifically to Andrew and myself. When she figured out that "da-da" is her father or that "ma-ma" is me I have no idea, so I won't count that as a word (hope that made sense).

So I'm counting as her official "first word": thank you. Technically, I suppose it's two words. Anyway, I asked her for a kiss and she gave me one and I said, as I always do, "thank you." She said back "dan-doo" or something similar to that. I thought maybe it was a fluke, so I tried it again and she said it again. I kept doing it for a while and she's definitely saying "thank you" in response to us saying it. Occasionally since Saturday we've gotten her to say "thank you" in response to being given something, but she hasn't caught on to that yet entirely. I don't imagine it'll be long before she realizes she can (and should) say thank you when someone gives her something. After all, we say it to her all the time and she's a clever girl.

So she's got a tooth, she's starting to talk, she stands up by herself (so long as she can hold onto something for balance), she's crawling everywhere when she gets the opportunity, she obviously understands a number of words and simple phrases, she feeds herself (her favorite lately seems to be scrambled eggs), and she's quite good natured and generally a very happy little girl. I think we might just be doing something right, although I don't discount the value of the "raw material" that is Zoë. Sort of like how a potter can shape the clay, but the quality of the clay counts for a lot. Zoë is definitely good clay.

:: posted 23.10.00 :: link

Last night, the stairs. Zoë climbed them, almost all by herself. Well, I was right behind her the whole way ready to catch her if she started to fall, and I did show her how to put her knee up on the next stair so she could climb up, but she did it almost entirely by herself. We made a big production of it and she seemed to have fun doing it, as well. I don't think she'll be ready to come down the stairs for quite some time, though.

:: posted 18.10.00 :: link

Zoë is finally getting some hair. She's got enough now to be actually fuzzy and you can brush it different directions. She's still nearly bald, but it's a start.

She's also sort of hit or miss on the sleeping through the night. Over the weekend she went four or five hours at a stretch but no more. Oh, well. In time she'll manage to sleep through the night every night. Who knows when it'll be, though...

:: posted 16.10.00 :: link

Another night of sleeping six hours straight through, woo hoo! I would, of course, prefer eight hours (or more) but I am definitely not complaining. Six hours straight through is like heaven after months of continually interrupted sleep. I feel better than I have in a long time. I'm just going to cross my fingers (well, figuratively speaking; I can't actually type with my fingers crossed) and hope that this is the beginning of a long-term trend.

:: posted 13.10.00 :: link

Zoë was hitting me. Well, not intentionally, of course. She was impatient to go downstairs, and she was hitting me with her arm over and over, the same way she does when she's impatient in the high chair or anywhere else. It's simply a gesture of frustration, and she has no clue that doing it to me might actually hurt me.

I said to her, "Ow. Don't hit me. I don't hit you, so you don't hit me." It's really a good feeling to be able to say that! How could I realistically teach her not to hit (or grab or yell or whatever) if I did it, myself? It would have to be just "because I'm bigger than you" (even if I didn't use those words). I don't like what that teaches, and I'm absolutely committed to positive parenting, mostly because I know firsthand what sort of damage negative parenting techniques can do.

:: posted 12.10.00 :: link

I think I got a full night's sleep. I say I "think" because of our sleeping arrangements. Zoë sleeps in our room, in a small cot by my side of the bed (occasionally she sleeps with us in our bed). When she wakes in the night for a feed or some other reason, I just pull her into bed with me and offer the breast and I doze while she has some milk. Often, I wake at some point afterward and put her back in her own bed. Sometimes she remains in the bed with me. I've gotten so proficient at this in the ten and a half months since her birth that I often sleep almost through the entire process.

So when I say that I "think" she's sleeping through the night, it's because I'm not entirely sure if I gave her a feed in the middle of the night or if she slept straight through to early morning (when she wants a feed and we both go back to sleep in my bed while Daddy gets up and gets ready for work). I feel very rested today, and I honestly don't have even a vague memory of waking up in the middle of the night. I definitely remember the early morning waking, though.

I've been putting off trying to put Zoë in her own room until she was consistently sleeping through the night because, frankly, it's too much on me to get up one or more times in the middle of the night to go feed the baby in the other room. I don't think I'd call it laziness so much as knowing myself and knowing that exhausting myself is pointless. However, if she's going to start sleeping through the night regularly, we'll start thinking about putting her down in her own bed in her own room (which is right next door to ours).

I'm not in any hurry to have her in her own room, for what it's worth. The arrangement we have now isn't a problem, and I'm confident that when she's ready, my "high need" baby (to use the term coined by Dr. William Sears) will settle down into her own room. She may be a toddler by the time she does it, but that's all right with me. We'll just take things on her schedule.

And the first thing on the schedule is to make sure she is regularly and consistantly sleeping through the night...

:: posted 12.10.00 :: link

My darling girl and I had fun at lunch yesterday. We went out with Auntie Lori, my best friend (who also happens to be an expatriate American). Zoë had some rye bread, a few fried potatoes, and a fruit bar, and was so cute to the staff that they came over to offer her a treat. Unfortunately, it was a marshmallow. I reacted with such alarm at the thought of Zoë eating a marshmallow that I think I scared the poor waitress half to death. She wouldn't make eye contact with me the rest of the day. I honestly didn't mean any harm, and I appreciate the thought, but marshmallows are way too sugary and I doubt that a toothless baby could manage to eat one anyway.

:: posted 10.10.00 :: link

We went to Nanna and Grandpop's house yesterday. Zoë always enjoys visiting them. She gets to play the piano and play with things like calculators and tear up old magazines, in addition to having a complete fan club to watch and adore her every move.

We have two high chairs, both gifts and/or hand-me-downs. The smaller of the two was here because Zoë was too little to sit in the big one properly for a long time. Now that she's managed to stand up and fall out of the small one (no matter how tight I make the belt), we got the bigger chair, which has a much sturdier harness. She can't stand up in this chair. I may actually be able to put her in the chair and take my eyes off of her for more than a split second and know she's not going anywhere.

:: posted 9.10.00 :: link

I was just reading over past entries in this file and I use the word "demand" a lot in reference to Zoë. Well, she is demanding. She comes from a long line of stubborn, strong-willed people, and it's no surprise that she's also stubborn and strong-willed. Frankly, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. Being strong-willed can be a very helpful thing sometimes, particularly if you want to succeed in a difficult field or against great odds.

The trick here, I think, is to teach her how to curb and channel her stubborn will, so that it works for her rather than against her. Stubbornness is just a negative way to describe persistence. If she can learn to take that frustration and use it to fuel her legitimate goals, and to use her strong will in positive, constructive ways, she'll do well in the world.

In any event, I've no intention of trying to "break" her will. My parents tried that with me and it only hurt me, plus I never learned self-control or how to curb my desire for instant gratification or how to handle frustration. I have, as an adult and with the help of considerable personal counseling, learned these things, but for a long time my own strong will and stubborn streak worked against me rather than for me. I don't want that to happen to Zoë. She needs to be shaped, taught, and guided, not "broken".

:: posted 8.10.00 :: link

I think we're getting closer toward sleeping through the night. She went for about six hours last night without waking.

She also fell asleep in the high chair again today. She had an English muffin and a piece of cheese and some juice for brunch and when her tummy was appropriately full she fell asleep. At the moment, she's snoozing in the cot by my desk.

:: posted 8.10.00 :: link

Zoë has taken to eating "real food" with great excitement. Now that she's old enough to be able to feed herself reasonably well, she is. She still dislikes most jarred babyfood (with a few exceptions), but she likes most things that I cook and will try anything I'm eating, sometimes without my permission. I try to be careful what I let her have, but most of what we eat is okay for her, so we share.

Last night we went out to dinner and she had a grilled cheese sandwich and a couple of french fries (not many; they're quite salty) and a few grilled vegetables. She gets terribly excited to eat food in a restaurant. It's almost like the concept of someone bringing her food is as amazing as the act of eating.

Today she ate half an English muffin and then when she saw that I had bacon and scrambled eggs on toast demanded some eggs of her own. In the afternoon, she had a couple of biscotti (mild vanilla cookies, no added sugar) and a strawberry fruit finger (again, no added sugar). Then at dinnertime she had pumpkin babyfood from a jar, which happens to be one of the few kinds of baby food she'll eat.

She's also drinking out of a cup more frequently now, although she hasn't really figured out how to hold it herself yet. Well, she can hold it, but she can't seem to work out how to tip it up so she gets the liquid into her mouth.

As for the breastfeeding, she's still going strong, but we've managed to cut the feedings down considerably. We're not even close to weaning (and I have absolutely no plans on doing so any time soon), but my goal of getting her more interested in food and drink that comes from sources other than Mama is being realized, much to my relief.

Now if I can just persuade her that sleeping through the night is a good thing....

:: posted 7.10.00 :: link

I just noticed the size of the bruise on Zoë's forehead. Sheesh. She fell out of my bed this morning and bonked her head, and she's got a whopper of a bruise now. So far she has fallen out of her high chair (I have since tightened the belt and make sure she's always within quick reaching distance), out of one of her bouncers (not allowed to use it without direct supervision now), out of my bed more than once and off various pieces of furniture... It's not like she's not being supervised. I was in the bed with her when she fell out. She's just very quick, very strong, and very inclined to explore everything in sight. They say that an active baby is more likely to be injured than a placid, easy-going baby, and I can see why. Usually when she hurts herself it's because I took my eye (or hand) off her for a split second and in that brief moment of time she managed to squirm away, stand up, or otherwise put herself in a precarious position.

The thing is, I'm torn between knowing that bumps and scrapes and falls are a normal part of every child's life and wanting to protect her from being hurt. I also feel somewhat negligent sometimes, because I feel like if I had just been paying closer attention perhaps she wouldn't have hurt herself, but the fact is, I do watch her, and she tends to do damage to herself in the blink of an eye, when I just turn away to grab a cup or something. I know this is normal. I know she's unlikely to do permanent damage and that this is only the beginning of the injuries she's going to inflict on herself. It's just so hard to look at my sweet baby's face and see that big bruise.

Ah, well. I can't swaddle her in bubble wrap. All I can do is take as many precautions as I can, keep a good eye on her, remember how incredibly fast and strong she is, and hope she doesn't do anything severe enough to require a trip to the doctor...

:: posted 5.10.00 :: link

Zoë has a great future as a network technician. Last night she was down on the floor, crawling everywhere and playing with things while I watched her and her dad worked on the computer. He was logged in to the Unix server from my Windows machine, writing an email, and suddenly the network went dead. He said in a rather annoyed voice, "Billy's gone dead again." (Billy is the name of the Unix machine.) He waited, assuming it was going to reboot itself. He waited some more. He tried some network checks from our machine (no response). I asked if it was normal for Billy to take so long to reboot. He said he'd go and check and went to physically look at the server to find the problem.

When he came back a few minutes later he said, "Well, I'm embarassed now. Did you notice that the network connection went dead exactly around the time Zoë was playing near the network cable?" Basically, she had managed to pull the cable from the wall enough to cause us to loose our network connection, and neither of us thought to check it.

:: posted 5.10.00 :: link

I am raising a baby geek. I had her on my lap just now (she was sharing my lunch of chicken and broccoli in cheese) and I had to reboot the computer. Since we had finished my lunch, I asked her if she'd like to get down and play. She saw the computer start to reboot and indicated via body language that she wanted to stay and watch the process. When the Win98 splash screen came on, she laughed and stared at the screen happily.

Note that she does this with other things, too, such as the theme songs of familiar television programs and commercials. She's got a very good audio/visual memory. Oh, and once the reboot had finished and the regular desktop appeared, she was happy to go off and play.

:: posted 3.10.00 :: link

We had a much better night. Zoë did wake for a feed at around two a.m. (or thereabouts; I didn't actually look at the clock) and I pulled her into bed and gave her some milk. We both then fell asleep together and she stayed the rest of the night on my side of the bed (usually, I put her back in her own bed). Before going to bed, she had some pain reliever for the teeth that are making big, tender lumps in her gum, and that seemed to help.

As I write this, she's fighting sleep in the sling. Nothing I do seems to persuade her that sleeping is enjoyable and that when tired, she should sleep. I have always been a sleep-fighter, so presumably this is an inherited personality trait. At any rate, she's dozing off, waking to yell, then dozing off some more. Soon, she'll go to sleep completely and when she's really asleep I'll put her in the cot which is next to my desk (a combination playpen and bed so she can play safely while I work).

She's also starting to get the idea that things in cups might be okay. She drinks water and juice from a cup and I'm teaching her the word "drink" in association with the cup. It has occurred to me that the reason she still wants to breastfeed so much is because she's thirsty (I absolutely hate being thirsty, so she probably does, as well). Providing drink in the cup seems to be satisfying her thirst. And no, I have no plans to wean her from the breast any time soon, but she really is old enough to drink from a cup more than she does, and I feel that her breastfeeding is a bit excessive for her age (breastfeeding advocate I am, but breastfeeding slave I'm not). Basically, I just want to open her experiences more and lessen (but not dissolve) her absolute dependence on me.

And, as predicted, she has fallen asleep. Looking down at this little face just touches me profoundly. And gosh, doesn't she look like her daddy? My coloring, my almond-shaped eyes, my hands and feet, but in every other respect, she's definitely her daddy's girl.

:: posted 3.10.00 :: link

Zoë had a bad night. Around two a.m. she woke up crying. Normally, I automatically pull her into bed and feed her when that happens, barely waking up myself, but when I went to sleep I had a headache and I was really exhausted. When she woke at two I was quite disoriented and she was going at it full blast by the time I realized that I hadn't just fallen asleep. I gave her a feed and thought that would settle her, but it didn't. She seemed to want to go back to sleep, but kept waking up again sobbing (loudly, I might add). I got up and got her some pain reliever and rubbed some numbing gel on her gums and thought maybe then she'd fall asleep, but by that time she was nearly hysterical and she cried off and on for an hour.

She ended up sleeping in our bed. By the time she finally fell back asleep, both of us were so tired neither could be bothered to move her anywhere else.

:: posted 2.10.00 :: link

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