6 Months Old & Eeeewwww, banana!

Avery turned six months on Aug 15th! He weighed 17lbs 12oz (50th percentile) and was 27" long (85th percentile) at his well check up. He started to army crawl and loves to spend lots of time rolling and scooting on his belly on the floor. He is getting close to sitting up on his own. His spitting up has improved; some days are still pretty gross but overall he spits up less than before. He is still a pretty happy little guy! He has discovered his shrieking noise which isn't our favorite phase, hopefully he moves on to something else soon. ;-)

We did professional family photos at Target that week, so I didn't do my usual little photo shoot with him. But we did take photos of him trying what apparently was the most disgusting thing on the planet, also known as banana. ;-) Since then he had a tiny taste of blueberry and a bit of sweet potato, and he didn't seem impressed with those either.

Rainbow Noodles

I adore Pinterest because I find things that I never even knew to look for - mostly awesome recipes and fun kid projects. I knew Ari would like this sensory activity and it was pretty easy to do too. Cook some spaghetti noodles, fill several different bowls or ziplock bags with a little water and several drops of various food coloring, and divide the spaghetti into the different colors. Let it soak for a couple minutes, then drain and mix all together in a big bowl or tub. Dig in! Ari ate some, used a fork and spoon to play with it, buried legos to then "dig for treasure," and just mushed it around in his hands. He had a lot of fun and has already asked to do this project again. :)

Thanks for nothing.

I have at least 3-4 kid-related blog entries to catch up on, hopefully I will have time for those soon. For right now, an update about my ongoing effort to get some treatment for PPD, which unfortunately hasn't been going very smoothly.

So I went to Mother's Oasis yesterday. It is a non-profit group that offers free post partum services. It's run by a UK trained midwife and I met with her. I am not sure if she has other credentials but she offered individual counseling with her.... if she is actually licensed in counseling, she is terrible at her job.

On a positive note, it was kind of nice to talk to someone about everything. However, overall, she was not the right person to talk to.

She chastised and shamed me for attempting an HBAC with Avery - several times. It's so dangerous, she never would have done that, what was wrong with my provider, I am lucky to even be alive, etc etc.

She told me that even though I can take meds while nursing, I should just wean him right now, because my hormones are messed up and that will fix it. This is such shitty advice on so many levels. Many women experience an INCREASE in depression when their baby weans, due to the hormone change. It's quite common. Also, we had talked about my current stressors, finances being one of them - how would buying formula help with that? I just.... yeah.

When I talked about how I have been yelling too much and I don't feel in control of my emotions and extreme reactions, she told me I absolutely need to stop yelling at my 3 year old, right now, I am damaging him. Um, yeah, I *want* to stop, that's why I am getting help.... but I just said that I feel out of control, I need help!

So she basically gave me bad advice and made me feel even worse, really. Of course she recommended getting blood work done (she agrees my thyroid is probably off) and seeing a psychiatrist, both of which I am trying to do anyway.The only psychiatrist she claims is any good with PPD stuff is not covered by our insurance though. (I now have an appointment with a nurse prac for Monday, though, to at least do blood work.) She also did the Edinburgh Post Natal scale thing to measure the PPD, so I guess having that number will be helpful when I do see other providers. I scored a 19 out of 30; anything over 10 is considered a concern.

I am considering going back next week for the support group, which someone else runs. They also have a free zumba class on Tuesday nights. It's a 40 minute drive though so I don't honestly know how many of their services I will end up utilizing.