Turtle-Love and the princess ice pack

I wrote this yesterday and thought to share it with you all. I hope you enjoy!


Once upon a time there was a little boy named Turtle-Love.
Turtle-Love was a smallish child - a happy boy of nine and one half months.
He often played with cups rather than baby toys, and preferred walking around and drumming on boxes to sitting peacefully. His mother and father embraced all his ruckus as they knew he was growing and developing in to a rather curious child.

One evening his mother and father were preparing for the next day when Turtle-Love became fussy. He was tired and a bit hungry, and so his mother took him to bed to nurse and sleep. However, as his mother's eyes grew weary Turtle-Love's cries grew more frequent.
Turtle-Love was not interested in being nursed, or laying down, and sleep was not in his mind. Turtle-Love's father came up to bed and scooped Turtle-Love up. He walked the hallway back and forth, all the while talking and bouncing little Turtle-Love, trying to calm him.
Turtle-Love's mother tried again to nurse him, to no avail. Turtle-Love was not interested. He continued to cry and became frantic.
Turtle-Love's father took him back downstairs where he presented Turtle-Love with a fantastic treasure; a frozen ring of a toy! Turtle-Love was delighted at the cold sensation on his sore gums. It seamed all the fuss Turtle-Love had been making was due to new teeth!

Turtle-Love had only one and one half teeth, both on the bottom, however now his top gums were very swollen! Poor poor Turtle-Love continued to fuss here and there.
His mother came down the stairs and scooped him up from his father. She rocked and swayed and sang to Turtle-Love, all of which only briefly appeased him.
Turtle-Love's father, noticing the frozen ring was getting warm, produced a new and better treasure; a frozen pink Sleeping Beauty lunchbox gel pack! Oh what glee! Turtle-Love was so very excited to receive this treasure! He only slightly bit it, and preferred to hold it with both hands to be sure it would not be lost.

Turtle-Love's mother took him to the bathroom to play in the mirror. Turtle-Love had great fun watching the boy in mirror world imitate him. Together they raised their arms, flapping them at times like wings.
Together they bounced the gel pack against the mirror sheet that separated their worlds.
Alas, together they discovered the light switch! Amazed, Turtle-Love and his mirror world counterpart would turn off the light, giggle, and then look for each other in the mirror. Turtle-Love's mother would then turn the light back on, as did a very similar looking woman playing with his mirror friend.
Turtle-Love's mother then allowed Turtle-Love to turn the light off one last time, and they said goodnight to the mirror boy and his mother.

Turtle-Love's father then met them in the play room. Together his parents tried to place Turtle-Love into the mamaRoo; a device used to coax little boys into sleeping by rocking them and bouncing them like their mothers.
Turtle-Love was mad! How dare they try to put him down! He screamed and wailed at his mother when she tried to move him away from her. All he wanted was to be in her arms, why did she not want to hold him?!
Turtle-Love's whole world seemed to fall apart, just as his mother quickly scooped him back close to her. She snuggled Turtle-Love and kissed his face, assuring him she would not set him down. Turtle-Love relaxed and returned to sucking his bottom lip.

Turtle-Love's father then pulled a new treasure from the cold black box that shoots ice; a frozen figure eight toy! He tried to trade Turtle-Love for the gel pack, but as soon as he took the gel pack from Turtle-Love, Turtle-Love was crushed.
All he wanted was his pink Sleeping Beauty lunchbox gel pack. All he wanted was to hold it, and his father had taken it from him. No amount of kisses from his mother would fix that, and his father soon realized and returned the gel pack to Turtle-Love.

Turtle-Love gripped the gel pack firmly in both hands. As his mother tried to lay Turtle-Love on her shoulder, Turtle-Love lay the gel pack on her shirt and rest his head on it. Quickly he jerked his head upright again; the gel pack was very cold! It gave Turtle-Love a shiver.
Silly Turtle-Love. He grinned sheepishly, and pat the gel pack against his mother's arm as he lay his head on her shoulder, briefly.
Right then Turtle-Love's mother had a great idea. They would go for a walk! The night air was warm and inviting, and Turtle-Love loved to be outside. Turtle-Love's father held him gently while his mother dressed in his riding harness; a soft blue cushion that ensured he would be snuggled against her.

After his mother placed him against her with his soft blue attacher Turtle-Love continued to grasp his pink gel pack; determined his princess friend would weather the night with him, chilling his little fingers.
Turtle-Love's mother and father tried to coax Turtle-Love to chew on the gel pack, but Turtle-Love wanted only to hold it and know his princess friend was there with him.
Turtle-Love's father and mother, carrying Turtle-Love with ease, began to walk. They walked slowly and spoke softly to not wake the neighbors at such a late hour.

They walked past a red metal figure in the ground near their house.
They walked past a whole line of trees, who's branches were waving to them in the warm night air.
They walked past rows of houses all attached to each other, with metal mounds that rolled in the daylight, now shining under the tall lamps along their path.
They walked past a small field.
They walked past the swimming water's fence.
They walked through the bubble in the road that always marked they were almost home when they were in the rolling metal mound.
They walked through an isle of trees and shrubs, all gently swaying in the slight night breeze that tickled Turtle-Love's fuzzy hair.
They walked to the end of the isle of tree's and they stopped. Turtle-Love's mother and father spoke briefly and turned around. Then they began their journey back the way they came.
Turtle-Love was furious! He did not want to turn back yet! There was so much more to discover past the isle of trees, all that he wanted to see!
Turtle-Love's mother patted his bum and gently shooshed him. Turtle-Love didn't know why, but this sound was appealing to him. Everyone in a while he would fuss, fighting the sleep that had been welling in his eyes for such a long time.

Turtle-Love then realized his gel pack was no longer cold. He princess friend had gotten as warm as his mother and the night air! What a tragedy this was, and Turtle-Love mourned the loss of his chilly friend.
Turtle-Love's mother was gentle with him. She reminded him it was okay, that she was still holding him and was there snuggled to him tightly. Turtle-Love relaxed, remembering his mother was still there.
Turtle-Love made noises of disagreement as his heavy eyes started to drift and fall. His mother continued to shoosh and pat him.
The last Turtle-Love saw before giving in to his sleep weary eyes was the red metal figure in the ground. He thought how nice it was he made it home.
Turtle-Love's mother and father walked near their home for a little while longer to be sure little Turtle-Love was sleeping well.

They retired to their bedroom, and carefully removed Turtle-Love's soft blue attacher.
Turtle-Love's mother was sure to never set him down, but instead to lay him with her gently on the bed.
And then they slept.

The end.

Baby, work, wedding...

Just a few topics I wanted to write about briefly while Turtle-Love naps...

Nursing to sleep. Does anyone else pretty much HAVE to nurse their child to sleep?? Turtle-Love refuses to sleep for me without the boobie. He was refusing to sleep without me holding him, but we are working on that and doing pretty well. I'm thinking that was just a phase. However, nursing to sleep does NOT seem to be a phase. It doesn't matter how tired he is - he will NOT go to sleep with out the boobie. Unless I'm not home. Not just in the other room, but actually gone. Then apparently he will go to sleep. And SOMETIMES in his car seat, if he is stuffed to the gills.

TV time What is your policy on TV time for your infant? Sure, Turtle-Love has inadvertantly watched some NCIS with me, but today I actually decided to put him in his bouncey seat with a Baby Einstein video. He is about 24 weeks old. Bad? Okay? Good? Who knows. I guess as far as TV goes, Baby Einstein is definitely the lesser of the evils. He was a good distance away from the screen. The video was Meet the Orchestra and he really seemed to enjoy it - complimented by grunts and babble =)

Starting solids Attention preemie moms but of course I would love feedback from everyone. What is your view on solids? Did you do purees? How old was your baby when you started? Preemie moms: did you wait til your child reached the appropriate adjusted age, or actual age? I'm having a bit of an internal battle with this. Turtle-Love will be 6 months in 2 weeks. He is sitting supported and has some moments of balancing upright on his own. He salivates at the table when we eat and stares hardcore at food. We have been letting him hold breads for a couple weeks but he wasn't interested in putting them in his mouth. I've spoon feed him formula supplements a couple times to see how he does with the spoon, btw he loves it and grunts and whines if I'm not fast enough. The past three times we have handed him a bread item (a biscuit, a pizza crust, a cracker) he has put them in has mouth - I made it a game and took it from him before he could ingest anything. The last thing we gave him was a cracker 2 days ago - he slobbered on it and broke a piece off. I was terrified at first, and then watched him chew it! I made it a game again, and fished it out lol. He thought it was funny. Originally, I wanted to wait until his 6 month appointment to see what the doctor said about starting him on solids - mainly because he is a preemie and I worry about his digestive system being ready. He has given me tons of signs he is ready though. I'm just not sure. I know I'd like to make my own baby food when we get to that point.

Working & babysitters I've been working from home since January. I had asked my company to let me work from home for at least 6 months, and that mark is coming up. In addition to that, one of our employees turned in her 2 week notice. So my boss has asked that I come back to the office. s2bDH has an off the wall schedule that revolves around events at the university for his "day job" and events at local music scenes for his security job. We can't count on his paycheck or his hours more than a week at a time because we never know what the schedule will be for either job. He is about ti hit a slow point in his day job, and my sister will be up for about 2 weeks so they will be home with Turtle-Love through mid June at the least. I'm now having to decide is paying for a daycare or a sitter, which is about half my take home based on the prices I've seen, is worth my job. Obviously we need the money, but if I'm putting out everything I take in AND losing time with my son, I'm just having a hard time accepting it. If we go with a daycare, or can't find a sitter that will use cloth diapers and handle breast milk (assuming I can keep my supply up) we will also have the added costs of disposable diapers and formula. I love my job, honestly I do, but this is difficult. I don't even know where to begin on choosing a place/person to care for my son.

Wedding We are less than 5 months from our wedding! Yikes! We are certainly pinching pennies right now to make sure we can save enough to cover all of our costs, but this added expense for day care is going to injure our bottom line for the wedding. I've already signed some deposits and contracts and such so we are in it regardless, its just a matter of coming up with it all, as we are hosting our wedding.