Happy birthday Arden! You’re 12 weeks old today 😍🤗
How time flies! So much has gone on since the last time we wrote.
Tandy’s parent confirmation / adoption order was finalised today. 🎉 Yes we were married before Arden was born. Yes Tandy is listed as the other parent on the birth certificate. Yes you should do it even if you live in California. And yes we must never take our rights and privileges for granted. ❤️ it’s emotional, complicated and at times infuriating. And yet we are so grateful. Here is to LOVE. 🎉💥❤️Arden is developing by leaps and bounds. She has begun relating to some of her toys. Meet Paisley! Thank you Rebecca and Stephanie for this delightful doll. Arden’s first! Arden also has some international friends! Thank you Peter and David for this lovely travel set and sharing your passion for seeing the world with Arden! She is cheeky and incredibly expressive. Here she is contemplating whether to sleep or wake. Look at that eyebrow!! Arden is working through how to use her hands and often holds up her own bottle (or bats it away when she has had enough ha) Lesson time! Arden has flipped over from front to back a few more times in the last few weeks. Most recently though, it seems as though her body is catching up to the size of her head, so she can no longer use her head as leverage to turn ha. So she’ll have to figure something else out. Thank you Fiona and Chee Hoi, and the boys for this play set! Halloween! Yes a leopard is carrying a sleeping baby unicorn with a slightly bent horn, handing out snickers and M&Ms. Thank you Anne for knowing that we needed an outfit!! there was no way we were organised enough to get one in time. Goodness she is so cute. And looking more Asian! Striking a pose…! She can hold her head up pretty well, but still seems a little unreliable. So we will continue to wear her facing backwards for a bit more. Thank you Syd, and by extension Alexis, for handing down this awesome outfit from Charlie!! ❤️Some days I’m paranoid she isn’t warm enough. Thank you Syd for another well-loved outfit! 😍So… I was introducing this toy to Arden as an acorn… see real acorn pictured above. CAN YOU BLAME ME REALLY? Tandy had to gently let me know that American kids have been identifying this form as an apple since time immemorial. I’m glad Tandy is around to sense check these things!!! Imagine if poor Arden went to school and insisted it was an acorn because her mommy told her so… My first batch of lactation cookies! The next batch was a lot more evenly shaped and prettier, thanks to Aaliyah’s handiwork. Thank you Aaliyah for all your nourishing and yummy food! 🙂
Milk production continues to be a challenge. Firstly, pumping 8 times a day is only possible if one stays home all day and does nothing else. Secondly, feeling bad during pumping is actually a thing (D-MER — Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex). Wow. Yup. I, like many others, do feel that my life juice is being sucked out of me after I’m done pumping and it doesn’t feel great. Secondly, I’ve tried all manner of supplements etc and seriously, the only thing that seems to consistently bring in milk is very dark beer. We tried non-alcoholic beer and could only find amber ales and that didn’t work. So I checked in with the doc she confirmed a standard beer a day is fine, as along as I pump 2 hours after the drink. So we went out and got some dark porters and yup, volume went up. Thing is, I haven’t had beer in so long it is making me feel bloated and sluggish. Anyhoo. Long story short, we’ve decided not to stress it — we will commit to 6 pumps a day. No beer if it makes me feel icky. I had a chat with Arden and told her how it was going to be. She seemed ok with it. 😬
On the nursing front, the lactation consultants recommended I focused on one thing at a time, and offer the boob as an option in a low stakes kind of way. What this means is I try to offer the boob during skin to skin time, but don’t get much action outside of that. Such is life. We have decided not to stress it, will go as long as we can on donated breast milk and try to hit the six month mark when solids can be introduced. If we don’t make it, well then formula it will have to be. Happy mamas happy baby.
So we try to get out to keep up our mental health. Fall is here! The colors are gorgeous. Nashville’s downtown area is NUTs, with bachelorette parties and party tractors. It’s like a totally different planet from the one we are inhabiting at the moment. I can now have a booster (Tandy had hers today) and will do that soon so Arden can get my COVID antibodies. With an unvaccinated little one in the house, will our lives really go back to normal? We watch Arden like a hawk for any signs of things that seem out of the ordinary and write to her doctors and our friends frequently for their opinions (thank you especially to Cindy and Amy!) First was loud snoring that sounded like her airways were blocked (she’s fine. It’s very dry here…). Second is a little bump on the back of her head that the docs said was fine also — a function of baby sleeping on her back most of the time. I am getting that this vigilance and heightened awareness will be the rest of our lives!!Poor little Ouisie is getting so much less attention than before and it makes me a little sad. She is a real trooper though and continues to prance around the house seeking some love and scratches. Both Arden and Ouisie are somewhat indifferent to each other at this moment except for Ouisie’s occasional lick on Arden’s foot. Thank goodness for friends who stop by and help prep for family to visit and hang out with Arden. Yay for a patio heater – Thank you Irving!At Sam Quinones’ launch of his seventh book “The Least of Us” at Parnassus Books (which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year – also see Ann Patchett’s latest collection of essays “These Precious Days”). We had Sam and his wife Sheila over recently and had good adult conversation — even if the topic of the fentanyl epidemic is quite depressing, Sam has an uplifting thesis/recommendation. It’s wonderful that Arden has been quiet as a mouse at events and gatherings. Just in the last few days though, she has been more fussy / inconsolable for longer stretches. Before, it would take us about 10 seconds to soothe her. Now, her demands are perhaps a bit more complex and not as easy to figure out, resulting in more pouty crying and streaming tears. Fingers crossed this doesn’t last too long! This is 90 seconds of her chomping on her hand. She loves it! And self-soothing is a wonderful thing. She is still waking up every ~3 hours overnight so the doctor encouraged us to try and have her sleep in a separate room soon, and extend her sleep cycle to four hour stretches. She is only wanting to eat 2.5-3 oz at a time so a four hour sleep seems like a stretch. Oh oh. Sleep training here we come! This is 45 seconds in early Nov of her just being cute and engaged and quiet. Nowadays she is becoming increasingly chatty! It certainly feels like she is trying to communicate, and isn’t just making random noises. She recently met Mango! Both were finally awake, and while Mango was clearly enthusiastic, Arden seemed a little stunned to encounter someone roughly her size for the first time.
I am aware that Tandy’s experience of being a mom is quite different my journey. We spend much less time together compared to before, and check-ins are limited in depth by time, all that has to get done, and energy levels. We are lucky — good communication and love (and what I think has been a fairly easy baby) has been what has kept things from going absolutely sideways and we are doing decently. I am very grateful that Tandy loves on Arden and I the way she does, and holds us both when we need holding. ❤️❤️ I’m certain we will continue to optimise “the way we do this” — like hey a novel idea we should not just schedule Arden time and alone time, what about couple time?! We are working though what our care model will look like when I return to work in January and we have our fingers crossed that things will work out well.
For now, family is coming in a few days, prep is almost done, and we are super excited!! 🎉😍❤️
Adventures with Arden 
Absolutely, completely wonderful‼️
Bruce R. James
202-746-3100 M
bjames@nevadanewtech.com
LikeLike