A Dash of Dash a Day for May: May 7

I guess it's impossible to post on this blog regularly without talking about Mom.

I can't remember the last update on this blog that I made regarding Mom. For a quick recap, she spent a few weeks in the geriatric psych ward of a local hospital in September, and ended up coming back home after that. October through the first few weeks of December were extremely difficult, with visiting nurses coming in twice daily and my mother being less and less cooperative even though she was spending her days at an adult care facility. Finally, in December, after two weeks of her sleeping only from 8pm to around midnight, we opted to ask the group we work with for a respite stay to get ourselves back on track a bit. It turns out that she was so bad for them that they were going to ask us if we'd be okay with a respite, so that worked out.

I don't want to talk too much about the first place she ended up. It wasn't a positive situation for anyone involved - we weren't happy with a lot of what was happening on all ends, and (more importantly) it was far too noisy for Mom to really exist in a calm, peaceful manner. It was really kind of ridiculous for her, and her condition worsened as a result, including a lot more in the way of violent aggression. She made some trips back and forth to the hospital, but we finally got her transferred out to a different facility, and she's doing a lot better there.

From a basic "visiting your not quite 60-year-old mother in an Alzheimer's ward" standpoint, she's really doing the best she has been since maybe October or November. Not terribly angry, but basically not really with it, either. She's pretty much consigned to a wheelchair all the time now, just as much for her safety as it is everyone else's, but if she's at all aware of her surroundings or even if we're there anymore, it's not obvious or even implied. The good news is that her floor is pretty quiet and she has some really attentive people there with her. That helps.

At this point, Ann and I take Dash up to see her once to twice a week. Between work and Dash's bedtime, it's fairly difficult to get up there more often than that, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that you're visiting someone who really doesn't seem to know or care that you're there. You want to visit because it's the right thing to do, but it almost seems futile. Thus, we bring Dash. Why? Mom, for whatever reason, still likes seeing the baby from time to time. A few weeks ago, she even popped out an "It's Nanny!" line outside of her typical incoherent babbling. We were pretty shocked by it, but since Dash seems to make it a little better from time to time (and allows everyone a little break), he comes along.

Dash will take our hand and do laps around the center, too, charming nurses and patients alike. You obviously can't let him out of your hands with these types of patients, but it's also an open, round space that allows for some safe exploring. The nurses love him because he's a little guy with a big personality, and a lot of the patients love him because who doesn't love a baby? One woman constantly tells us that she's going to call him "pumpkin," another is reminded of all her children. It's kind of nice - I feel like Dash is making a difference in these people's lives in some way.

As for Mom, without too much speculation we know that this is probably going to be her final stop. What that means for actual timetables, it's hard to say. She's already on the far end of things in terms of survival rate. She's not outwardly suffering, but...

Overall, though, it's just weird to see this ball of joy and life and learning in Dash contrasted with a woman who is a shell of what she used to be. All the old concerns and complaints about losing out on a mother figure to bounce everything off of still applies, and as Dash becomes more aware, it becomes more of a thought about what to shield him from, what he gets out of this, and so on. It's all so strange.

Bu we keep persevering. We have to.

A Dash of Dash a Day for May: May 6

Longtime readers know the sleep problems we've had with Dash over the last year. The post then really just encapsulated the early issues, I never really got around to explaining how bad things got as we headed into the winter. Needless to say, even with a transition to the crib, having a four hour stretch where he didn't wake up was a victory for us, never mind any other options. The typical was every couple hours, maybe every 45 minutes.

This is, really, entirely our fault. Basically everyone told us to do the "cry it out" method, with others the modified Ferber method. For us, we just saw it as overly cruel. Yes, the science is basically in that you wouldn't do lasting harm, but who would want to let a child cry for the sake of crying while it's asleep in the crib? It's a baby! It doesn't get it! The baby wakes up, is completely confused by the surroundings that weren't there when it fell asleep, and reacts. We weren't on board.

The tide shifted significantly for us shortly after one of my business trips in January. Dash went about a week waking up every 45 minutes on the spot. Ann would be on night duty, so it was pretty much her trying to get the baby to sleep and me trying to get sleep so I can be some sort of useful during the work day. It was getting worse and worse to the point where he had a night where he had a number of 20 minute sleep rotations. At that point, we couldn't blame it on sleep regression anymore. Ann grabbed the Ferber book from the library, made a plan, and we dove in.

That night, he cried for 10 minutes and then slept eight hours.

I'm not going to pretend that the entire issue is solved. He still has a wakeup or two a night, he still needs to have his night feeding weaned, and he's a terrible napper even now, but instead of fighting with the baby from 8pm onward, having him interrupt meals and shows and company, he goes to bed at 6:30 after a pretty standard routine involving toys and puppets and songs, and he's basically sleeping. The molars that he's cutting have made the last couple weeks difficult, but we're miles ahead of where we were four months ago.

If anyone asked me now, I'd absolutely tell them to do the Ferber thing when appropriate. If not for the baby's ability to sleep, but just for basic parental sanity. The crying, for us at least, stopped so quickly that we continue to kick ourselves that we didn't just go along with it sooner.

A Dash of Dash a Day for May: May 5

Dashypants is on the go!

Ann was able to get a child membership to the local YMCA. She doesn't get access to much, but he gets to go swimming, do playgroup and toddler gym, etc. It's a fun place that he does a lot of exploring in, he's the star of the show watching people in spin class, and so on. At the very least, it gets him out of the house, but he gets to do so much more. It's great, and Ann always comes home with great stories.

He also enjoys going to the mall, which is hilarious given how completely irrelevant malls are becoming. While it does have a play area available, the fact that it's a wide open space for him to walk around and people watch and get confused by mannequins is a lot of fun for him. Maybe he'll be worn out of it by the time he's a teenager.

By far his favorite place to go is the park, though. Kid loves being outdoors (which has made the cold, nasty weather that much more frustrating over the last month), and whether it's the sandbox (which blew his mind) or the geese (that blew his mind) or the dinosaur ride (which was just okay), or just watching people and eating a snack, he's getting out and about.

I don't know why I'm cuted out by this. It might be, in part, that I was worried that he'd be stuck at home a lot with Mom around and such, and with Mom in a nursing home now, he gets out a lot more. It's also fun because it means a lot more in the summer we can do as a result. Definitely a plus.

A Dash of Dash a Day for May: May 4

A bit of a photodump today only because Dash spent some time charming a host of my favorite ladies at a baby shower yesterday, and at one point some fairy wings were found by Dash and, well...

Tiffanie really takes the best pictures...

A Dash of Dash a Day for May: May 3

Ann sent this picture to me with the simple line "this is what Dash does while I poop." I guess I'm proud that he can find a way to occupy himself even though the cabinet locks are spreading around the house...

A Dash of Dash a Day for May: May 2

Being in this house, with the literally thousands of books we have, it was assumed/hoped/desired that Dash would be literarily-inclined. I know you can't really force these things, and Ann always feels the need to remind me that the fact that I was reading at a high level before my third birthday is an unlikely expectation for Dash, but I still hope he loves books at least a little bit.

It didn't really start with books, though. It really started with bookmarks:

I have a habit of leaving my books in accessible places when I go to bed, and that means that, far too often, Dash gets to them first. Thankfully, I have a ton of bookmarks, but he is just so fascinated by these little pieces of paper it's kind of hilarious. They must be the perfect size of things for his hands or something.

Thankfully, and recently, he's started showing a lot more interest in actual books to the point of being able to sit down and read. He also has his go-to board books with cute little animals in them and such, and he shows more and more interest by the day.

The funniest thing he's started doing, though? Reading books in his crib after we put him to bed. He's just like Daddy!:

I fully realize that I need to do more to be reading to him above and beyond what he's already getting, but it is pretty good to see that access to a lot of books plus seeing your parents reading equals wanting to do so yourself.

A Dash of Dash a Day for May: Day 1

In an effort to kickstart my brain and this blog and to not miss out on pretty much every awesome achievement of my son, I'm going to do another monthlong project. I apologize in advance for those who will tire of this by day four.

Anyway, with so many people coming to my life so much later in my life than back when I was in high school and college, it's a little known fact that I actually went to college for music education to start out. I wasn't a very good music major, truth be told, but I didn't lose all my abilities either. I was still a good singer for a while, can still play a variety of instruments (although my guitars have been collecting dust for quite a while now), and I'm still fairly musically inclined.

Everything I know about babies tells me that babies responding to music is not exactly a special or unique situation, but I'm constantly amused at how well Dash has taken to music.


If Dash has a favorite song these days, it's Leyla McCalla's "Rose Marie," a take on a more traditional Haitian folk song. I'm not sure what it is about the song that gets him going, but whether it's a live version Ann finds on YouTube while in the woods of Maine or the album off of Spotify, he will stop what he's doing and start doing whatever dance that is that he's doing, then flapping the arms, and then playing percussion on a nearby lap. It's pretty hilarious.

The first song he ever really dug was Katy B's "5am", a Europop song that's amusing on its own. I've resorted to starting a Spotify playlist specifically for songs he loves, and it ranges from indie rock like "Waiting on You" by Future Islands all the way to actual children's songs like "We Are the Dinosaurs" by Laurie Berkner.


I wish I could say he has great taste, but alas, he also has a toy motorcycle that plays Smash Mouth's "Walking on the Sun" that also gets him excited. Meh, we all have our heretical musical tastes, right?


That still doesn't excuse his dancing with Mickey Mouse with this toy, but hey.

He's been going to a toddler group music class in town and apparently really enjoys guitars and rhythm sticks, so I guess it's time for me to learn some songs again, but for now he seems to just be letting the music speak to him a bit. Nothing wrong with that.