an hour ago, i found myself scrubbing footie pjs and being so thankful for those tender mercy footies.
last night around 9 o clock, i started getting an upset stomach. by the time i put elizabeth to bed around 9:30 (church really throws off her schedule), i was feeling seriously sick like i might throw up any minute. eventually, while laying on the floor of our powder room, i was thankfully able to throw up (into a plastic bag, because that's my favorite) and start feeling better. i wasn't 100%, but i was good enough to fall asleep. i woke up at 3 (i think i heard a kid but i guess they must have fallen back asleep because i waited and nothing came of it) and still felt queasy but so thirsty so i got up and got a drink. when i got back to bed, i was pretty awake and allllmost checked my phone (because i hate laying there super awake), but had this thought that i really should close my eyes because i needed sleep. so i did that. thank goodness.
because a little before five, brady woke up. this is pretty normal. he was standing at the top of the stairs crying and calling for me. this is also very normal. he was crying out "mom! i pooped in my undies!!!" this is not at all normal. i rolled out of bed and walked up the stairs to help him. he was stressed out. i smelled him. there was definitely poop. i peeked in the neck of his footie pjs. oh holy fountain of crap, what the heck happened in there?!?! i had brady walk ever so gingerly the few feet to the bathroom which caused him even more stress. he was walking like he felt gross. well of course, poop in undies. but the real disgustingness became apparent to me when i saw that he was leaving wet footprints on the tile floor of the bathroom as he walked to the tub... and left a nice little brown footprint on our bathmat. i am not prepared for this. i panicked for a bit. where do i even start?!?! i helped brady to step in the dry bathtub and started to unzip his pjs. oh this is so much worse than i previously thought. how does this keep going downhill so fast for me?! i can't even describe the poop situation that was hiding in those footie pjs. the little thomas undies had overflowed with poop (or maybe it just oozed out since it's just thin cotton... I HAVE NO IDEA HOW... it seriously defies the laws of physics) and smeared down his legs, and POOLED in the feet of his footie pjs which explains why he was so grossed out to walk. it was like he was walking in socks full of mud. everything was like mud. everything from his belly button on down was covered. when we were in costa rica last christmas, we went to hot springs one day and did a mud bath where you get fistfuls of soft mud and rub it over your body (i only did my legs because you're supposed to rinse it off with freezing cold water and i wasn't up for that) and this was just like that. it was like tiny diarrhea fairies had come in and given him a mudbath while he was sleeping. i had to stop because, oh my gosh, where was i supposed to put my hands?!
i ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed a pair of disposable latex gloves (that i keep on hand for emergency situations like this. i also grabbed a handful of plastic grocery bags. with my gloves on, i was able to help brady step out of the pjs. he was so grossed out. i started to take off his undies but... i couldn't. there was so much liquid poop in there that would literally just pour out into my tub... which was not only disgusting... it just wasn't practical. because for the past month or two, that tub has been draining really slowly. which isn't normally a problem because i just give my kids baths in it. not normally a problem except when my parents visit and need to shower in a bath that drains (sorry mother!) or when i need to wash down a whole lotta poop. anyway... that wasn't an option. i couldn't get poop in the tub. so i got a plastic bag and opened it up and had brady step inside of it. then he begged me not to take his undies off. so i ran downstairs and grabbed scissors. i'd already decided that the undies wouldn't make it, so it made sense to cut them off. brady was so freaked out by the nasty feeling of it all that he was almost in tears again thinking about sliding off his underwear. he was relieved that i could cut them. except that when i got the scissors, i realized i couldn't. only two inches or so of one hip were clean. nothing else. so i couldn't cut the other hip without getting the scissors dirty and having to throw those away too. i apologized to him and told him we would get through this together. ; ) standing in the plastic bag, i helped brady pull the underwear off into the bag while he stepped into the bath tub. and then i used a million wipes to wipe him down (spoiler alert: it didn't work) and then wipe the bottom of the tub as well. with pj's in one bag (to decide on later) and underwear/wipes/paper towels from cleaning the tile floor in the other (to throw away), i gave brady a preliminary bath. the water was disgusting. and then we had to wait forever for it to drain while i explained to brady that he needed another bath and if he wasn't so cute, i would have sent him on his way with the underwear.
well, eventually i got him cleaned up (still wearing my gloves, thank goodness) and he wanted regular clothes... not pj's. whelp... i guess we're up for the day now. fantastic.
tender mercies:
that brady was on the little crib mattress on abigail's floor instead of on our guest bed that would require a ton more laundry and doesn't have a waterproof mattress pad.
that brady was wearing underwear that i had no problem throwing away. we've gotten a lot of use out of it... it's time to let go.
that brady's pj's were fleece. had they been any other material, i would have had to chuck them.
that brady was wearing footie pj's. what if he was wearing regular cotton pj pants. or basketball shorts even?!?! as revolting as it was to clean out his pj's (because i decided to save them), i am so glad he was wearing fleece to hold in the poop and footies to extra hold in the poop. this would have been a freaking blood bath of diarrhea if he'd been wearing pjs that opened at the waist and ankles.
also... that our trash day is monday and this didn't have to sit in my garage at all. straight to the curb it went!
soooooo much to be grateful for that i can't even get over it.
also, i probably shouldn't have saved the pjs. i had to work up my courage to open that bag and tackle them. i started with them just regular and then eventually turned the feet inside out to clean them with scalding hot water (have i ever expressed how much i love the utility sink in our laundry room??? that thing has seen so much poop, it's ridiculous)... it was at that point that i thought "holy cow this is waaaaay worse than i even remember it! i should have thrown these away for sure!" but i was already invested and had cleaned too much poop to back out at that point. then my poop cleaning (thank goodness i still have a couple of gloves left because now i'm down to only one!) would have been for naught! i hand washed them a few times with scalding water and fels naptha and then ran them through the wash twice. they still have a faint hint of nastiness on them so i plan to keep washing them and doing oxiclean soaks. that way i can remember the fond memories of this night. i talked to mom about it on the phone and couldn't stop laughing. seriously... it was insane.
so, one for the books. the nastiest thing i've dealt with thus far in my five little years of motherhood. it was great.
Showing posts with label poop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poop. Show all posts
Monday, November 2, 2015
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
brady at 9 months
happy nine months, brady boy!
here's the best i've got for a 9 month run down...
sleep... it's improving! i can't even remember the last time i swaddled brady. at least three weeks ago. probably just right after i wrote his 8 month post. there was a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to sleep well without the swaddle, but since then, it's been so much better! i'm not sure if it's dropping the swaddle or increasing solid foods during the day (or likely a combination of the two) but brady has been sleeping longer and longer stretches at night. if he wakes during the night... it's just once (normally because he needs a diaper change) and three nights in the last week, he's slept a full 12 hours without waking at all! keep up the good work brady boy!
brady is awesome at sitting and really great going from sitting to stomach. he walks his arms forward and looks like he's about to take off crawling, but really he just slides onto his belly and then just rolls wherever he wants to go.
as of two days ago, brady can army crawl! he only does it when he really really really wants something (normally my phone but occasionally for a toy) and it's hilarious to watch. he looks like a wounded soldier in battle. his right arm stays tucked under him while his left arm does more reaching which gives him the wounded look. and he's so intense about it but he moves at the speed of... molasses. i need to get a video before his crawling evolves. kids grow so fast, hopefully i don't miss this.
like i said last month, clothes are all over the board. everything from 3 months to 18 months. diapers are still size 2 during the day and size 3 at night. poop is awesome because he pretty much never has blowouts but the downside is that his diapers aren't smelling like roses (outkast anyone?). i really don't know how but abigail's poop didn't smell at all at this stage... brady's definitely does. some days he only has wet diapers, and then some days, i'm changing dirty diapers every few hours alllll day long.
brady still has the best laugh ever. and getting him to laugh is the easiest thing ever. sometimes just eye contact, sometimes making a suspenseful "i'm gonna get you!" kind of noise... you don't even have to touch him. he also thinks fake laughing is hilarious. like if you literally say "ha ha ha ha ha." although real laughing works too. especially when abigail is laughing... then brady will laugh too. other things that make him laugh... tickling him (anywhere from head to toe. behind his ears, in his neck, his chest, back, sides, under his arms, thighs, legs, feet... i'm not sure i've found anywhere that he's not ticklish), attacking him with stuff animals, tossing him in the air, faking like you're going to drop him, pushing him over and then catching him before he hits the ground. really, if he knows you're playing with him and you have a playful energy, whatever you do will get a deep laugh and it'll go forever... or at least however long you continue to do what you do. it's positively intoxicating.
brady still has no teeth and absolutely zero signs of teething. no drool, no fussiness, no chomping on everything in sight (he'll mouth stuff but he's not going to town on it), nothing. it is wonderful. and he's got the cutest gummy smile. hopefully he gets teeth eventually so he can start eating more real food though. nursing is still going great (he never tries to bite me... i totally anticipated that happening by now) and although he's super easily distracted, i just make it a point, when we're home, to always nurse him in the glider in his room and abigail is amazing now at not interrupting. ever since i explained to her that brady has trouble eating when she's around, she wants to do whatever helps him so she'll go play by herself and if she does come in, she opens the door really slowly and quietly, sees brady is still eating, and then quietly closes the door and tiptoes away without saying a word. the sibling love between these two makes me so anxious to see how they'll get along when they're a little older.
brady really likes to eat food. he loves loves loves cheerios. i think because they're so quick and easy for him to feed himself. he prefers to feed himself but most of his "i-have-no-teeth" food options aren't really easy finger foods. so, in the mean time, i try to occasionally give him things he can feed himself (like raspberries) and more often than not, try to get him to let me spoon feed him. he likes the food, he just wants to put the spoon in his mouth himself... after inspecting it himself. jarred peas and green beans are his favorite veggies, and he likes sweet fruits like applesauce, mashed pear, and jarred peaches. real fruit is sometimes a little too flavorful i think. or maybe he just doesn't like the tartness? he'll eat fresh kiwi, peaches, raspberries, etc. but it normally takes him three or four bites to get into it. my favorite food to feed him is boiled egg yolks. i boil a bunch of eggs at a time, and then i go ahead and peel all of them and separate the whites in one container and little egg yolk balls in another container (whites for abigail, yolks for brady... works great!) so they're so simple to just crumble and stir in with jarred food or baby cereal or mashed up anything. quick and cheap and easy way to bulk up his food with some fat and protein. and from what i can tell, it adds good flavor. my other favorite food to feed him is bananas. because it is also quick and cheap and easy and it's one of brady's favorite foods so i know he's not going to be finicky about eating it. my favorite is to cut slices into quarters and feed him with a spoon but of course his favorite is to feed himself. but really, i love the convenience of being able to throw a banana in my purse along with one of those little take n toss (although i never toss) baby spoons and we're good to go. one other thing to mention is that i can't get over how much this kid eats. for having such small percentiles, he really puts the food down. tonight for dinner he had half an avocado, a handful of mashed raspberries mixed in with baby oatmeal, more raspberries just thrown on his tray that he fed himself (abigail started him with those... she actually gave him grapes first but i took them away... how many times do i have to tell her, you can't eat grapes unless you have teeth!), and a jar of green beans with an egg yolk and oatmeal cereal mixed in. i swear he was in his highchair all night long. it was well over an hour. and it ended with a hose down shower in our kitchen sink.
k, that's all for now... brady, we love you so much and think you're awesome blah blah blah... basically, you are the best little bundle ever and i love you so much i get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about your smile. there's a reason i creep into your room a million times a day to see you sleep.
i just can't help myself.
here's the best i've got for a 9 month run down...
sleep... it's improving! i can't even remember the last time i swaddled brady. at least three weeks ago. probably just right after i wrote his 8 month post. there was a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to sleep well without the swaddle, but since then, it's been so much better! i'm not sure if it's dropping the swaddle or increasing solid foods during the day (or likely a combination of the two) but brady has been sleeping longer and longer stretches at night. if he wakes during the night... it's just once (normally because he needs a diaper change) and three nights in the last week, he's slept a full 12 hours without waking at all! keep up the good work brady boy!
brady is awesome at sitting and really great going from sitting to stomach. he walks his arms forward and looks like he's about to take off crawling, but really he just slides onto his belly and then just rolls wherever he wants to go.
as of two days ago, brady can army crawl! he only does it when he really really really wants something (normally my phone but occasionally for a toy) and it's hilarious to watch. he looks like a wounded soldier in battle. his right arm stays tucked under him while his left arm does more reaching which gives him the wounded look. and he's so intense about it but he moves at the speed of... molasses. i need to get a video before his crawling evolves. kids grow so fast, hopefully i don't miss this.
like i said last month, clothes are all over the board. everything from 3 months to 18 months. diapers are still size 2 during the day and size 3 at night. poop is awesome because he pretty much never has blowouts but the downside is that his diapers aren't smelling like roses (outkast anyone?). i really don't know how but abigail's poop didn't smell at all at this stage... brady's definitely does. some days he only has wet diapers, and then some days, i'm changing dirty diapers every few hours alllll day long.
brady still has the best laugh ever. and getting him to laugh is the easiest thing ever. sometimes just eye contact, sometimes making a suspenseful "i'm gonna get you!" kind of noise... you don't even have to touch him. he also thinks fake laughing is hilarious. like if you literally say "ha ha ha ha ha." although real laughing works too. especially when abigail is laughing... then brady will laugh too. other things that make him laugh... tickling him (anywhere from head to toe. behind his ears, in his neck, his chest, back, sides, under his arms, thighs, legs, feet... i'm not sure i've found anywhere that he's not ticklish), attacking him with stuff animals, tossing him in the air, faking like you're going to drop him, pushing him over and then catching him before he hits the ground. really, if he knows you're playing with him and you have a playful energy, whatever you do will get a deep laugh and it'll go forever... or at least however long you continue to do what you do. it's positively intoxicating.
brady still has no teeth and absolutely zero signs of teething. no drool, no fussiness, no chomping on everything in sight (he'll mouth stuff but he's not going to town on it), nothing. it is wonderful. and he's got the cutest gummy smile. hopefully he gets teeth eventually so he can start eating more real food though. nursing is still going great (he never tries to bite me... i totally anticipated that happening by now) and although he's super easily distracted, i just make it a point, when we're home, to always nurse him in the glider in his room and abigail is amazing now at not interrupting. ever since i explained to her that brady has trouble eating when she's around, she wants to do whatever helps him so she'll go play by herself and if she does come in, she opens the door really slowly and quietly, sees brady is still eating, and then quietly closes the door and tiptoes away without saying a word. the sibling love between these two makes me so anxious to see how they'll get along when they're a little older.
brady really likes to eat food. he loves loves loves cheerios. i think because they're so quick and easy for him to feed himself. he prefers to feed himself but most of his "i-have-no-teeth" food options aren't really easy finger foods. so, in the mean time, i try to occasionally give him things he can feed himself (like raspberries) and more often than not, try to get him to let me spoon feed him. he likes the food, he just wants to put the spoon in his mouth himself... after inspecting it himself. jarred peas and green beans are his favorite veggies, and he likes sweet fruits like applesauce, mashed pear, and jarred peaches. real fruit is sometimes a little too flavorful i think. or maybe he just doesn't like the tartness? he'll eat fresh kiwi, peaches, raspberries, etc. but it normally takes him three or four bites to get into it. my favorite food to feed him is boiled egg yolks. i boil a bunch of eggs at a time, and then i go ahead and peel all of them and separate the whites in one container and little egg yolk balls in another container (whites for abigail, yolks for brady... works great!) so they're so simple to just crumble and stir in with jarred food or baby cereal or mashed up anything. quick and cheap and easy way to bulk up his food with some fat and protein. and from what i can tell, it adds good flavor. my other favorite food to feed him is bananas. because it is also quick and cheap and easy and it's one of brady's favorite foods so i know he's not going to be finicky about eating it. my favorite is to cut slices into quarters and feed him with a spoon but of course his favorite is to feed himself. but really, i love the convenience of being able to throw a banana in my purse along with one of those little take n toss (although i never toss) baby spoons and we're good to go. one other thing to mention is that i can't get over how much this kid eats. for having such small percentiles, he really puts the food down. tonight for dinner he had half an avocado, a handful of mashed raspberries mixed in with baby oatmeal, more raspberries just thrown on his tray that he fed himself (abigail started him with those... she actually gave him grapes first but i took them away... how many times do i have to tell her, you can't eat grapes unless you have teeth!), and a jar of green beans with an egg yolk and oatmeal cereal mixed in. i swear he was in his highchair all night long. it was well over an hour. and it ended with a hose down shower in our kitchen sink.
k, that's all for now... brady, we love you so much and think you're awesome blah blah blah... basically, you are the best little bundle ever and i love you so much i get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about your smile. there's a reason i creep into your room a million times a day to see you sleep.
i just can't help myself.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
"high needs" in vs out
tonight, i was talking to a friend about how brady is about 8.5 months old and he's at the point where he's been out about as long as he was in. i said something like "the strange thing though is that pregnancy was such a breeze and it just flew by and these last eight and a half months have felt like ffffffffoooorrrreeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrrrr." don't get me wrong, i love my kid, but holy cow, it's been a really, really long 8.5 months." my friend has a difficult baby like brady so we can relate. but tonight i just keep thinking about that. so i finally did the math. turns out, today exactly, brady is as old as the number of days i was pregnant (well, kinda... the first two weeks of pregnancy are a freebie because the moment you conceive, you're already considered two weeks along... but whatever). let's be honest here that being pregnant was way easier than actually taking care of a baby. and i really loved being pregnant so we can also be honest that being pregnant was also frequently more enjoyable than taking care of a baby. but, still in complete honesty, i anticipate the next 8.5 months to be way more awesome than the previous 17 months... so there.
brady has not been an easy baby at all. in fact, according to this article about the 12 features of a high needs baby*, brady is as "high needs" as they come. apparently "high needs" is the politically correct term for that kind of baby. i read this article and it was as if someone wrote that article specifically about brady.
like this...
i mean seriously! how many times have i called him bipolar?! that's why! he only knows the two extremes of emotion. i've always said "he's never just quiet, he's only laughing or crying. thankfully, this is not the case anymore. well... not as much. he's still very much bipolar (although thankfully the percentages have shifted and he's now happy and laughing far more than he's fussy and crying) but he's really evened out into a pretty well adjusted kid!
but that article describes his newborn days so perfectly.
1. "intense" - like how he screamed for the first three hours after he was born and every nurse that came in commented on how loud and angry he was. and they sent us home with five or six of those green pacifiers. with abigail, we were sent home with zero pacifiers. brady, they just kept throwing those our way.
2. "hyperactive" - basically, his body didn't have the ability to relax. his whole body was always flexed and tense, back arched, squirming and wiggling. i know now that it was from the pain of reflux but holy cow was it exhausting to try to hold him. and my whole body would ache after trying to feed him because i was trying to contort myself to keep him latched. i remember sprawling out after nursing him, my whole body completely spent.
3. "draining" - i think of this more like everyday he would completely suck the life out of me. he took everything i had to offer, and still wanted more. sucked me dry until i literally had nothing left to give.
4. "feeds frequently" - with abigail, she refused to nurse more frequently than every four hours and it was hard for me to imagine when other people told me their newborn liked to eat every two hours. with brady, it was like he hated nursing but wanted to do it all the time. at the height of his difficulty (thankfully for me, while my mom was in town) brady was two weeks old and would nurse so frequently than in a single hour, i couldn't tell you how many times he'd eaten. even now, i nurse him about every 2.5 hours (when he wakes and before he goes to sleep), plus give him solids. and he puts down a TON of food. lunch today was almost an entire avocado, almost an entire pear (abigail got a few bites of each), and oatmeal cereal with a hard boiled egg yolk mixed in. for a kid barely on the charts. i'm realizing now that he just requires more food, and more frequently. thankfully, feeding him tons during the day has directly correlated to longer stretches of sleep at night. i think the kid was just hungry. really really hungry.
5. "demanding" - like the article says, it was never a request to be held or be fed, it was positively demanded. if i had a dollar for every time i said "i feel like a slave to my child." he was truly a slave driver. constantly cracking a bull whip. and he sometimes (wait for the "unpredictable" bullet point) still is. when he wakes during the night with a dirty diaper and i try to change his diaper before i nurse him, you better believe he is going to scream bloody murder during that entire diaper change... right into that baby monitor.... which i'm sure christopher appreciates. so now i nurse him on one side, change his diaper, and then nurse on the other side before putting him back in his crib.
6. "awakens frequently" - i actually don't have that many memories of this because i could never get him to sleep in the first place. but i do know that even the very slightest thing would wake him up and that he wouldn't transfer from my arms to a crib or anywhere else and that his naps were super short and his night time sleep stretches were frequently only an hour. so umm, i guess i do remember this part after all. but really, before i started him on zantac... he never slept. awake for hours and hours and hours on end during the day. and i remember so many sleep deprived nights where brady "slept" in the moses basket next to our bed and i could go three hours straight just putting a binky back in his mouth after he'd spit it out and cry. i was doing that about every 15-30 seconds... FOR HOURS. all. night. long. then maybe we would sleep for 30 minutes. but then it was the binky game for a few more hours. and then back to day time when i was just up and bouncing his crying self all day. i remember finally looking at the clock one afternoon and thinking, "how could it be?! it can't be this late in the day! he most recently woke up before noon! that was four or five hours ago!" if he does poorly in school, i am going to attribute it to his severe lack of sleep during those formative newborn days. i couldn't figure out how to follow an eat play sleep routine when he would constantly eat, never play, and absolutely downright refuse to sleep.
7. "unsatisfied" - how many times did i cry (with brady) in frustration that nothing i did was working?! i could try every trick in the book and it was just not enough. no matter how swaddled, bounced, binkied, nursed, etc. that baby was... it just wasn't enough.
8. "unpredictable" - go back and read blog posts from the early days if you want examples but basically, the only thing constant... was change. the same thing never worked twice and my mom frequently referred to this challenge as brady's "secret combinations." trying to figure out which combination of things and in which order... next to impossible. next to "bipolar," "unpredictable" is actually the word i used most to describe him. brady's like a box of chocolates; you just never know what you're gonna get.
9. "super sensitive" - brady always noticed even the slightest change in lighting or temperature or sound or the way i was holding him. he was definitely easily bothered and being around him was like walking on eggshells. i remember my mother in law coming over and, seeing me holding him, saying "well, he doesn't look too fussy right now!" as she smiled at him. just that she made eye contact with him and smiled at him sent him in full hysterics. unpredictable and very sensitive. the times that i took brady to therapy for his arm, the therapist always noticed how perceptive he was to sounds. she would comment on it that he obviously noticed a sound from the hallway... normally something i didn't ever hear or notice but the therapist caught a ton of those at every appointment. also, if i was holding him, i couldn't speak in anything above a whisper or he would start screaming. you wouldn't really think so, but this was hiiiiiiiighly inconvenient.
10. "can't put baby down" - it wasn't just that he needed to be held. but he needed to be held by a human, that was standing up, and in motion, that would offer a variety of bouncing, rocking, etc changing on a dime, depending on what brady was in the mood for. a swing wasn't enough, and neither was a bouncer. and a sling wasn't either. none of those things can change every ten seconds. so even though i had one of the most gorgeous newborns to ever grace this planet, i have so few pictures of it because i could never put the kid down. although the few times it happened, i took a million pictures. my mom really got in on it too. "quick! he's not crying! take a picture!" if he could be put down for 15 to 30 SECONDS without crying, my mom and i celebrated. that meant that he wasn't crying in my arms, and that the crying didn't start even when he was out of my arms. though neither of those things really happened more than three times a week. but ohhh, he was so gorgeous. he still is, but it's pretty rare for a new baby to be as beautiful as he was.
11. "not a self-soother" - i remember the doctor asking me how brady was sleeping and i said something like "i can sometimes get him to sleep if i double swaddle him (in this very particular way with certain blankets and certain pj's) and have it be really dark and hold a binky in his mouth while cradling him in my arms and bouncing in this very particular way while it's absolutely silent except for me making really loud shhhh-ing noises but then i can't put him down or stop doing any of those things or he'll instantly be awake and screaming again. and i remember being so proud of that until my doctor made a comment about him being picky about his sleep environment. ha. this goes back to him not wanting a swing or a bouncer or anything else (although he did do very well with a carseat when it was in motion)... he needed a human... and about fifty other things, all part of the secret combination, to behappy not miserable.
12. "separation sensitive" - if by some miracle, i could get brady to be content in my arms, he would immediately go into full blown panic mode with even the slightest change (walking on eggshells much?) occurring that might indicate that i was about to leave him in any way. if my body tensed in a different way, he would sense that i was about to place him in his crib/carseat/swing/bouncer/someone else's arms and he also learned to recognize his bedroom and dark rooms in general to the point that if i had him quiet and content in my arms and i walked upstairs, he would start crying as i stepped over the threshold into his dark bedroom because he sensed that i was about to place him in his crib. even now, he's really great playing independently, but does best when i'm either always in sight or never in sight. if i have him playing in the great room and i'm putting laundry away or cleaning around the house or doing anything that requires me to go from room to room, frequently coming and going from his sight, he's going to freak out and fuss the whole time. it's like every time i leave he thinks i'm never coming back. DUDE! I ALWAYS COME BACK!
so as difficult as a brady was as a baby, i am grateful it has made me so appreciative for the kid he is today. he's got his fair share of fussiness but he smiles so so much and it is so easy to get tons of those real deep belly laughs out of him. people always comment on what a happy baby he is and i typically just smile and say "he's come a long way." i know people don't think twice about it when i say that, but for me, it's special. he really has come such a long way. as a mother of just abigail, i would have looked at my current self with pity like "your child nurses how often?! and still doesn't sleep 12 hours at night?! and needs a binky 24/7?!" but my experience with brady makes me grateful that even though he still nurses frequently, it is enjoyable for both of us. and even though he doesn't sleep 12 hours straight at night, he's only waking up once and often has an 8 or 9 hour stretch in there... getting over 12 hours total. and even though he has a binky in his mouth more often than not... he is happy! forget the secret combinations... binky = independent, happy baby. it's straight forward and we love it.
i really love this kid. he has taught me so much and really, he is the most gorgeous, laughy kid everrrrrr. raising him is like continually unwrapping a present and he's only getting better with age. i'm so excited for all the days we have ahead of us.
*i found this article through this blog post... which really could have been written by me, it soooo perfectly described my own experience. like word for word. almost... there are some minor exceptions.
brady has not been an easy baby at all. in fact, according to this article about the 12 features of a high needs baby*, brady is as "high needs" as they come. apparently "high needs" is the politically correct term for that kind of baby. i read this article and it was as if someone wrote that article specifically about brady.
like this...
Along with their unpredictability, these children show extremes of mood swings. When happy, they are a joy to be around; they are master charmers and people pleasers. When angry, they let everyone around them feel the heat.
"When he is happy, he is the happiest baby around, but when he is angry he is the worst baby around. He is still that way, sunshine and smiles, anger and daggers. He has no middle emotion."
The child's unpredictability makes your day unpredictable. Do you take him shopping and risk a mega tantrum when his first grocery grabs are thwarted, or will this be a day when he is the model shopping cart baby, charming everyone at the checkout counter?
i mean seriously! how many times have i called him bipolar?! that's why! he only knows the two extremes of emotion. i've always said "he's never just quiet, he's only laughing or crying. thankfully, this is not the case anymore. well... not as much. he's still very much bipolar (although thankfully the percentages have shifted and he's now happy and laughing far more than he's fussy and crying) but he's really evened out into a pretty well adjusted kid!
but that article describes his newborn days so perfectly.
1. "intense" - like how he screamed for the first three hours after he was born and every nurse that came in commented on how loud and angry he was. and they sent us home with five or six of those green pacifiers. with abigail, we were sent home with zero pacifiers. brady, they just kept throwing those our way.
2. "hyperactive" - basically, his body didn't have the ability to relax. his whole body was always flexed and tense, back arched, squirming and wiggling. i know now that it was from the pain of reflux but holy cow was it exhausting to try to hold him. and my whole body would ache after trying to feed him because i was trying to contort myself to keep him latched. i remember sprawling out after nursing him, my whole body completely spent.
3. "draining" - i think of this more like everyday he would completely suck the life out of me. he took everything i had to offer, and still wanted more. sucked me dry until i literally had nothing left to give.
4. "feeds frequently" - with abigail, she refused to nurse more frequently than every four hours and it was hard for me to imagine when other people told me their newborn liked to eat every two hours. with brady, it was like he hated nursing but wanted to do it all the time. at the height of his difficulty (thankfully for me, while my mom was in town) brady was two weeks old and would nurse so frequently than in a single hour, i couldn't tell you how many times he'd eaten. even now, i nurse him about every 2.5 hours (when he wakes and before he goes to sleep), plus give him solids. and he puts down a TON of food. lunch today was almost an entire avocado, almost an entire pear (abigail got a few bites of each), and oatmeal cereal with a hard boiled egg yolk mixed in. for a kid barely on the charts. i'm realizing now that he just requires more food, and more frequently. thankfully, feeding him tons during the day has directly correlated to longer stretches of sleep at night. i think the kid was just hungry. really really hungry.
5. "demanding" - like the article says, it was never a request to be held or be fed, it was positively demanded. if i had a dollar for every time i said "i feel like a slave to my child." he was truly a slave driver. constantly cracking a bull whip. and he sometimes (wait for the "unpredictable" bullet point) still is. when he wakes during the night with a dirty diaper and i try to change his diaper before i nurse him, you better believe he is going to scream bloody murder during that entire diaper change... right into that baby monitor.... which i'm sure christopher appreciates. so now i nurse him on one side, change his diaper, and then nurse on the other side before putting him back in his crib.
6. "awakens frequently" - i actually don't have that many memories of this because i could never get him to sleep in the first place. but i do know that even the very slightest thing would wake him up and that he wouldn't transfer from my arms to a crib or anywhere else and that his naps were super short and his night time sleep stretches were frequently only an hour. so umm, i guess i do remember this part after all. but really, before i started him on zantac... he never slept. awake for hours and hours and hours on end during the day. and i remember so many sleep deprived nights where brady "slept" in the moses basket next to our bed and i could go three hours straight just putting a binky back in his mouth after he'd spit it out and cry. i was doing that about every 15-30 seconds... FOR HOURS. all. night. long. then maybe we would sleep for 30 minutes. but then it was the binky game for a few more hours. and then back to day time when i was just up and bouncing his crying self all day. i remember finally looking at the clock one afternoon and thinking, "how could it be?! it can't be this late in the day! he most recently woke up before noon! that was four or five hours ago!" if he does poorly in school, i am going to attribute it to his severe lack of sleep during those formative newborn days. i couldn't figure out how to follow an eat play sleep routine when he would constantly eat, never play, and absolutely downright refuse to sleep.
7. "unsatisfied" - how many times did i cry (with brady) in frustration that nothing i did was working?! i could try every trick in the book and it was just not enough. no matter how swaddled, bounced, binkied, nursed, etc. that baby was... it just wasn't enough.
8. "unpredictable" - go back and read blog posts from the early days if you want examples but basically, the only thing constant... was change. the same thing never worked twice and my mom frequently referred to this challenge as brady's "secret combinations." trying to figure out which combination of things and in which order... next to impossible. next to "bipolar," "unpredictable" is actually the word i used most to describe him. brady's like a box of chocolates; you just never know what you're gonna get.
9. "super sensitive" - brady always noticed even the slightest change in lighting or temperature or sound or the way i was holding him. he was definitely easily bothered and being around him was like walking on eggshells. i remember my mother in law coming over and, seeing me holding him, saying "well, he doesn't look too fussy right now!" as she smiled at him. just that she made eye contact with him and smiled at him sent him in full hysterics. unpredictable and very sensitive. the times that i took brady to therapy for his arm, the therapist always noticed how perceptive he was to sounds. she would comment on it that he obviously noticed a sound from the hallway... normally something i didn't ever hear or notice but the therapist caught a ton of those at every appointment. also, if i was holding him, i couldn't speak in anything above a whisper or he would start screaming. you wouldn't really think so, but this was hiiiiiiiighly inconvenient.
10. "can't put baby down" - it wasn't just that he needed to be held. but he needed to be held by a human, that was standing up, and in motion, that would offer a variety of bouncing, rocking, etc changing on a dime, depending on what brady was in the mood for. a swing wasn't enough, and neither was a bouncer. and a sling wasn't either. none of those things can change every ten seconds. so even though i had one of the most gorgeous newborns to ever grace this planet, i have so few pictures of it because i could never put the kid down. although the few times it happened, i took a million pictures. my mom really got in on it too. "quick! he's not crying! take a picture!" if he could be put down for 15 to 30 SECONDS without crying, my mom and i celebrated. that meant that he wasn't crying in my arms, and that the crying didn't start even when he was out of my arms. though neither of those things really happened more than three times a week. but ohhh, he was so gorgeous. he still is, but it's pretty rare for a new baby to be as beautiful as he was.
11. "not a self-soother" - i remember the doctor asking me how brady was sleeping and i said something like "i can sometimes get him to sleep if i double swaddle him (in this very particular way with certain blankets and certain pj's) and have it be really dark and hold a binky in his mouth while cradling him in my arms and bouncing in this very particular way while it's absolutely silent except for me making really loud shhhh-ing noises but then i can't put him down or stop doing any of those things or he'll instantly be awake and screaming again. and i remember being so proud of that until my doctor made a comment about him being picky about his sleep environment. ha. this goes back to him not wanting a swing or a bouncer or anything else (although he did do very well with a carseat when it was in motion)... he needed a human... and about fifty other things, all part of the secret combination, to be
12. "separation sensitive" - if by some miracle, i could get brady to be content in my arms, he would immediately go into full blown panic mode with even the slightest change (walking on eggshells much?) occurring that might indicate that i was about to leave him in any way. if my body tensed in a different way, he would sense that i was about to place him in his crib/carseat/swing/bouncer/someone else's arms and he also learned to recognize his bedroom and dark rooms in general to the point that if i had him quiet and content in my arms and i walked upstairs, he would start crying as i stepped over the threshold into his dark bedroom because he sensed that i was about to place him in his crib. even now, he's really great playing independently, but does best when i'm either always in sight or never in sight. if i have him playing in the great room and i'm putting laundry away or cleaning around the house or doing anything that requires me to go from room to room, frequently coming and going from his sight, he's going to freak out and fuss the whole time. it's like every time i leave he thinks i'm never coming back. DUDE! I ALWAYS COME BACK!
so as difficult as a brady was as a baby, i am grateful it has made me so appreciative for the kid he is today. he's got his fair share of fussiness but he smiles so so much and it is so easy to get tons of those real deep belly laughs out of him. people always comment on what a happy baby he is and i typically just smile and say "he's come a long way." i know people don't think twice about it when i say that, but for me, it's special. he really has come such a long way. as a mother of just abigail, i would have looked at my current self with pity like "your child nurses how often?! and still doesn't sleep 12 hours at night?! and needs a binky 24/7?!" but my experience with brady makes me grateful that even though he still nurses frequently, it is enjoyable for both of us. and even though he doesn't sleep 12 hours straight at night, he's only waking up once and often has an 8 or 9 hour stretch in there... getting over 12 hours total. and even though he has a binky in his mouth more often than not... he is happy! forget the secret combinations... binky = independent, happy baby. it's straight forward and we love it.
i really love this kid. he has taught me so much and really, he is the most gorgeous, laughy kid everrrrrr. raising him is like continually unwrapping a present and he's only getting better with age. i'm so excited for all the days we have ahead of us.
*i found this article through this blog post... which really could have been written by me, it soooo perfectly described my own experience. like word for word. almost... there are some minor exceptions.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
if you give a mom two kids
we're pretty crappy about having an actually family home evening on monday nights. we definitely spend time together as a family... but it normally doesn't include a formal spiritual lesson. well, we actually had one a few weeks ago. honey shared with us two mormon messages videos. one on being a mom and one on being a dad. it turned out to be pretty prophetic... at least for me. especially because when i thought things were really going to pick up with brady, he sprouted a tooth and his nighttime sleep regressed, daytime sleep regressed, and fussiness increased. if he was an only child, this really wouldn't be a problem. and as it is, it's still not a huge deal because my life is still so blessedly easy. but the thing is... it's frustrating to me. it's frustrating that i used to be able to do more and that i want to do more... but there is literally not enough time in the day to do everything i would like to do and save my mental sanity. blogging is my therapy and right now... that's what i'm doing. between popping a binky in brady's mouth every four seconds. dude, we both know you're gonna throw a fit the second that thing leaves your lips... so keep it in your mouth!
y'know those laura numeroff books? if you give a mouse a cookie, if you give a moose a muffin, if you give a pig a party, if you give a dog a donut... those. that's been my day. around noon, brady was sleeping and it was gorgeous weather so i thought it would be fun for baby girl to play outside. well... it took a while. took a while to go potty, get on appropriate play clothes and shoes, get an easter treat to take outside with her, and gather up the trains she wanted to bring, and probably at least five other things i can't even remember. it's a process. during this time, my honey texted me with the location of the pants he needed me to fix ("hanging in the closet" still took a lot of looking) and baby girl insisted on helping me find those before going outside. so finally she got outside and i had pants. i set myself at the kitchen table to i could watch her play in the backyard and then i realized i didn't have the right thread. so i came back with the right thread, got it cut to size, hadn't even gotten my needle out yet and... i hear brady waking up on the monitor. makes sense because he naps for about 2.5 hours and it had been 2h and 23 minutes. i just hadn't expected it to take so long to get pants and baby girl outside.
so i told abigail that i would just run upstairs to get brady and be right back. i sat back at the kitchen table and told her again, "it'll just take a few minutes for brady to eat and then we can all go to the front yard and you can ride bikes on the driveway!" she was very pleased. well, when brady was mostly done eating, he started pooping. and it went on and on and on and on. "don't worry baby girl! i'm just going to run to my room real quick and change brady's diaper... want to come?" so she came. but as soon as i unzipped his sleep sack, i knew this was a job that needed to be taken upstairs to the changing table. it was maybe his worst blowout yet. it was of epic proportions. so then i had to fill up the bathtub and bathe the kid. i got him in a fresh diaper and new clothes and he spitup and of course it got on his bath towel and new clothes and even his freshly washed hair. got him cleaned up again and took a load of laundry downstairs while brady cried upstairs. then i got him and went downstairs again before realizing... he's already been awake for an hour... he's going to get fussy and need to nap soon and now it's 1:30 and abigail will need to eat lunch so that she can nap too. after explaining to baby girl that there was no time for bikes on the driveway, i got her bike from the garage and put it on the patio. i went back inside to get brady and somehow she was riding her bike on the grass. noooo idea how she got it down there by herself. especially so quickly and without getting hurt. so confused. so we all hung out outside for five minutes and then i got her set up with her bike on the patio again and i worked on stain treating brady's clothes and getting everything in the washer. while i was doing that, abigail decided she wanted to hang out with us instead and helped grab brady a binky because he was crying again and my hands were covered with poop and stain chemicals. she's a great helper. then i grabbed her a banana and a sippy and sat her at the table to eat while i took brady upstairs to nap. that took a number of attempts and when i came back down, baby girl was already running to the stairs saying she was ready to nap. i asked her if she finished her banana and whatever and she threw her arms up at me and said "take me to sleep!" man, i guess she was tired because we did her whole nap routine (while periodically giving brady his binky and thankfully he eventually went to sleep) and she went right to sleep... didn't even play for a minute... or get naked. so i came downstairs, heated up a taquito from last night, ate that, brought my sewing stuff to my bed and was pulling up the scriptures online to listen to while i was sewing when... i heard brady crying. he frequently wakes up at the 45 minute mark but goes back to sleep right away with a binky. not today. after several attempts i just grabbed him out of his crib. i couldn't help think of how my day seemed like that mormon messages video.
so i brought him downstairs to my bed and i nursed him while i watched the mormon messages video... and cried. i guess really i just listened to the video while i looked at brady. he was so intently looking into my eyes and he was holding my finger with his hand on my chest and was just precious and calm. i love when nursing him is like that... not him arching his back and screaming and kicking... because we still get plenty of that too. it was a precious moment. elder holland's words are so encouraging. also they made me think of what my christopher said to me on monday after i was almost in tears telling him that aside from keeping the kids alive, the only thing i'd accomplished in the entire day was a trip to walmart... which was so depressing because it took my whole morning to get ready, a ton of time while we were there, and then all afternoon to recover from the trip, kids getting late naps, and groceries not even getting completely put away. he told me that he was impressed with what i had done that day. that a trip to walmart was a great thing. he said that keeping the kids alive every day is the only thing i need to accomplish every day and "everything else is just gravy." i go back and forth on my feelings on this but i know it's at least part true. there's too much i consider "absolutely necessary" when really, there are actually very few things (like keeping the kids alive) that fall into that category. i constantly feel like i'm not doing enough when i know it's not for lack of trying (i helped set up, clean up, and speak at our new beginnings program when i freaking had the flu with a fever of 101 and the worst full body aches of my life). i feel like been learning and relearning this lesson about every five or six days for the past few months, ever since brady was born. which speaking of... he's finally asleep again... and now i can go fold that laundry in the dryer. after that maybe throw together something edible for dinner, pick up the house a little bit, finish icing the cake i made for our neighbors (let's all pray they'll be home this time!) and maybe shower or at least get clothes, hair, and makeup done before my friend's baby shower tonight.
seriously, how am i supposed to have five kids when i already feel like such a failure with two? i need another pep talk with my dear weed. although i did talk to her a bit last night... it may have been about nasty cherry vanilla coke concoctions, bad math and losing two cents on a deal, quick trip, racism, and a husband carrying his amputee wife into a QT... among other things. maybe i'm only hanging in here because of that phone call and talking to my sister emmy and skyping with my wonderful carolyn. yes, sara snow, it's the little things.
and one last thing because i can't figure it out for the life of me.... how do moms with toddlers get bored?! like all those mom's that pin ideas of things to do with their toddlers because i guess they've got just so much time on their hands?! i was totally bored when abigail was a little baby... but not now. i've gotta be missing something because i can't even seem to get my kids outside for a few minutes... much less make super cool forts and creatures out of cotton balls and pipe cleaners and homemade playdough. ohhhh, someday.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Sick and poop
today was rough. sunday morning i woke up with a sore throat. monday morning it was worse. by monday night i was kind of dying. then i finally got in bed around 11 and was able to soak up some sweet sleep. for an hour. not sure if it's the teething or if brady has what i have but he woke up a midnight, two, five, seven, and then for the day at 9:30. baby girl woke up for the day at 8:15. so between my multiple nightmares about our new beginnings program (in one of the dreams, i got there and had forgotten to make the banana muffins that were apparently oh so crucial to the refreshment table), the crazy full body aches, and then the alternating chills/sweats and that time i couldn't fall back asleep for 45 minutes? i woke up feeling great. or maybe i woke up feeling like death. like i got beat up on the side of a road and a good samaritan never came for me.
so my day included wearing my down puffycoat constantly and spending as much time as possible in my bed with my electric blanket turned on high. when i worked, i never called in sick. like seriously never. a few times i remember getting sent home for throwing up on the job, but i never called in sick. at my nanny job interview in california they asked me how many sick days i took at my previous job and i didn't even understand the question. they had to explain it to me before i answered that i never took any time off unless it was cleared in advance. all day today i kept thinking to myself, "this is worthy of calling in sick. i might die."
and we had our young womens new beginning program tonight (side note: HOLY COW why does it take so. many. hours. to plan something that lasts for 45 minutes?! sooo much planning and prep and setup, etc. so glad that it went well and is out of the way now!) and i had to be there because i was part of the program. and that dream about forgetting to bring was i was supposed to for the refreshment table? actually true (except it wasn't banana muffins) and i had to drag both kids to the store today in the cold rain so i could get stuff to make the treat. i bet people thought i was a crappy mom for dressing myself in a puffy coat and fur boots while my kid was wearing a long sleeved tee. glad no one asked about it because i probably would have yelled/croaked "I'M COLDER THAN I'VE EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE!!! IF I OWNED A SNOW SUIT, I WOULD BE WEARING THAT RIGHT NOW TOO!"
anyways, it's 10:45 and somehow i survived. all day i just kept thinking "thank goodness i'm not throwing up. coughing, sneezing, sore throat, full body aches, and chills all suck... but thank goodness i'm not throwing up too. especially because i felt too sick to eat anything... so that would have been a pain.
want to know my silver lining of the day? it's about poop so if you don't like hearing about poop you should probably say goodbye now.
well when brady was down for his morning nap, i convinced baby girl to cuddle in bed with me and bring me books to read to her. i had the electric blanket turned on high and if i wasn't too cold and didn't move then my body wouldn't hurt so bad (ohmyheavens i don't know if i've ever gotten the aches this bad in my life). at one point i realized that baby girl hadn't gone potty in a long time so i sent her to the bathroom to do that and i crossed my fingers for the best (sometimes it's tricky for her when she's wearing her footie pj's) while i stayed in my warm bed. i'm not sure what happened but she came back naked holding two pairs of wet underwear and telling me that TWO undies got wet. seriously really confused about that. so i told her to put those in the washer and go upstairs and get some clean undies. she did that and came back just fine. so then she's just hanging out in my bedroom talking to me while i'm still in bed, and she looks up at me and says all matter-of-fact...
"I'm gonna go get new Thomas undies cause I'm gonna poop in these."
What?!
you'll have to understand that for the last year or so of her life, she has pooped exclusively in a diaper, in her crib. never ever ever poops around anyone. never gonna poop at the park or costco or a friend's house or while she's playing with her toys. n-e-v-e-r. apparently she needs her privacy. so i told her that poop goes in the potty and she should bring me another book. then i thought to myself, she's pretty legit these days and i'm going to feel like an idiot if she actually poops in her underwear.
so then I dragged myself out of bed to accompany her to the bathroom. Sure enough, she just sat right on the potty and did her thing.
so my day included wearing my down puffycoat constantly and spending as much time as possible in my bed with my electric blanket turned on high. when i worked, i never called in sick. like seriously never. a few times i remember getting sent home for throwing up on the job, but i never called in sick. at my nanny job interview in california they asked me how many sick days i took at my previous job and i didn't even understand the question. they had to explain it to me before i answered that i never took any time off unless it was cleared in advance. all day today i kept thinking to myself, "this is worthy of calling in sick. i might die."
and we had our young womens new beginning program tonight (side note: HOLY COW why does it take so. many. hours. to plan something that lasts for 45 minutes?! sooo much planning and prep and setup, etc. so glad that it went well and is out of the way now!) and i had to be there because i was part of the program. and that dream about forgetting to bring was i was supposed to for the refreshment table? actually true (except it wasn't banana muffins) and i had to drag both kids to the store today in the cold rain so i could get stuff to make the treat. i bet people thought i was a crappy mom for dressing myself in a puffy coat and fur boots while my kid was wearing a long sleeved tee. glad no one asked about it because i probably would have yelled/croaked "I'M COLDER THAN I'VE EVER BEEN IN MY LIFE!!! IF I OWNED A SNOW SUIT, I WOULD BE WEARING THAT RIGHT NOW TOO!"
anyways, it's 10:45 and somehow i survived. all day i just kept thinking "thank goodness i'm not throwing up. coughing, sneezing, sore throat, full body aches, and chills all suck... but thank goodness i'm not throwing up too. especially because i felt too sick to eat anything... so that would have been a pain.
want to know my silver lining of the day? it's about poop so if you don't like hearing about poop you should probably say goodbye now.
well when brady was down for his morning nap, i convinced baby girl to cuddle in bed with me and bring me books to read to her. i had the electric blanket turned on high and if i wasn't too cold and didn't move then my body wouldn't hurt so bad (ohmyheavens i don't know if i've ever gotten the aches this bad in my life). at one point i realized that baby girl hadn't gone potty in a long time so i sent her to the bathroom to do that and i crossed my fingers for the best (sometimes it's tricky for her when she's wearing her footie pj's) while i stayed in my warm bed. i'm not sure what happened but she came back naked holding two pairs of wet underwear and telling me that TWO undies got wet. seriously really confused about that. so i told her to put those in the washer and go upstairs and get some clean undies. she did that and came back just fine. so then she's just hanging out in my bedroom talking to me while i'm still in bed, and she looks up at me and says all matter-of-fact...
"I'm gonna go get new Thomas undies cause I'm gonna poop in these."
What?!
you'll have to understand that for the last year or so of her life, she has pooped exclusively in a diaper, in her crib. never ever ever poops around anyone. never gonna poop at the park or costco or a friend's house or while she's playing with her toys. n-e-v-e-r. apparently she needs her privacy. so i told her that poop goes in the potty and she should bring me another book. then i thought to myself, she's pretty legit these days and i'm going to feel like an idiot if she actually poops in her underwear.
so then I dragged myself out of bed to accompany her to the bathroom. Sure enough, she just sat right on the potty and did her thing.
 |
| a picture of my sweet girl with her precious little poop nugget. just kidding, it's a dark chocolate truffle*. |
and then she told me she wanted a truffle and i happily obliged. and then we called christopher at work so baby girl could share the great news. the best part was just seeing how she was so proud of herself. it made my heart melt.
*did anyone actually believe that? happy april fools... second.
Friday, January 20, 2012
overnight diapers
so there i was laying in bed, ridiculously early on a friday night, unable to fall asleep... when i got a text from my college roommate sawah. she asked me a bunch of questions about baby girl, one of them about soaking through diapers at night. so even though i should have rolled over and continued my attempts at falling asleep, i didn't. i texted her back and then got online. and then getting bored again, decided to write this post. about diapers.
i am sure that in addition to her fast metabolism, the reason baby girl is so skinny is because of the insanely large volume of liquids and solids ending up in her diaper. seriously. if it wasn't gross (and if i owned a scale) i would weigh her diaper pail bag after a week's time because i am sure it would weigh well more than my baby. anyways, all of that is gross, hopefully no one is reading this.
two months ago i was at my friend kirstyn's and she had huggies overnight diapers in her kids room. i thought "great. now diaper manufacturers have figured out a way to market diapers so we can pay twice as much per diaper just to feel like better parents." but then i asked her about them. she said michaela used to soak through every night and with these diapers it's only once every other week maybe. i wasn't sold.
but then when i was preparing to go to atlanta, i told my mom to buy some to try, because i didn't want to be doing laundry every day while we were in atlanta. it's already enough of a pain to do laundry when you're traveling and staying in someone else's house... i didn't want to be washing sheets and sleepers every day and giving my kid a bath first thing upon waking.
well... they worked. night after night after night. i was shocked and loving it. then i started rationalizing... well, baby girl hasn't been drinking that much since we got here so maybe it's just because of that. then we came back to colorado and used up the two nighttime diapers we brought with us. now we were back to a regular luvs size 4. and night after night baby girl would soak through and wake up completely drenched up to her neck. it was disgusting and it was causing me to do laundry more than once a week... which is a big huge no no for me.
until a week ago, i couldn't get baby girl to drink more than one sippy cup of fluid during the day. i would fill a sippy with milk every morning and she would take sips every once in a while and then towards night time she would drink quite a bit more and then by the time i put her to bed there was normally only about a fifth of it left. then i discovered that if the milk (or water) is room temperature or warmer, she'll gulp it right up. multiple sippy cups a day! this is fabulous but it also meant that while she soaked through her diapers at night before, now it was monumental... even using a size bigger than her regular daytime diaper.
well, i priced it. i pay 13 cents per diaper for baby girl's size 3's. size 4 huggies overnights (what she was using in atlanta... i thought 4's would be way too huge since it's for 22-37 lbs but she needs it because it is 100% full in the morning) were 33 cents per diaper. i have never paid that much for a diaper... ever. but i did the math... i only need one a day so for 20 cents a day, i can avoid tons of extra laundry, giving my terrified-of-baths-baby a bath at 8am every morning when our house is still 60 degrees, and being a terrible mom for letting my baby marinate all night in urine? well, i'm sold. if i can buy the badge of "good mom" for 20 cents a day, i'm totally on board.
am i even making sense anymore? i feel slightly delusional at the moment, like someone who has been in solitary confinement to long... which for me is apparently 1.5 hours.
anyways, the take away message from this is: if your kid is soaking through diapers at night, spend $20 (target, walmart, and amazon mom all have them for that price) and try out those special night time diapers in the blue box with stars and moons on them. you will love me for it.
ps- it's really too bad i'm not a popular blogger... they actually get paid for reviews like this.
i am sure that in addition to her fast metabolism, the reason baby girl is so skinny is because of the insanely large volume of liquids and solids ending up in her diaper. seriously. if it wasn't gross (and if i owned a scale) i would weigh her diaper pail bag after a week's time because i am sure it would weigh well more than my baby. anyways, all of that is gross, hopefully no one is reading this.
two months ago i was at my friend kirstyn's and she had huggies overnight diapers in her kids room. i thought "great. now diaper manufacturers have figured out a way to market diapers so we can pay twice as much per diaper just to feel like better parents." but then i asked her about them. she said michaela used to soak through every night and with these diapers it's only once every other week maybe. i wasn't sold.
but then when i was preparing to go to atlanta, i told my mom to buy some to try, because i didn't want to be doing laundry every day while we were in atlanta. it's already enough of a pain to do laundry when you're traveling and staying in someone else's house... i didn't want to be washing sheets and sleepers every day and giving my kid a bath first thing upon waking.
well... they worked. night after night after night. i was shocked and loving it. then i started rationalizing... well, baby girl hasn't been drinking that much since we got here so maybe it's just because of that. then we came back to colorado and used up the two nighttime diapers we brought with us. now we were back to a regular luvs size 4. and night after night baby girl would soak through and wake up completely drenched up to her neck. it was disgusting and it was causing me to do laundry more than once a week... which is a big huge no no for me.
until a week ago, i couldn't get baby girl to drink more than one sippy cup of fluid during the day. i would fill a sippy with milk every morning and she would take sips every once in a while and then towards night time she would drink quite a bit more and then by the time i put her to bed there was normally only about a fifth of it left. then i discovered that if the milk (or water) is room temperature or warmer, she'll gulp it right up. multiple sippy cups a day! this is fabulous but it also meant that while she soaked through her diapers at night before, now it was monumental... even using a size bigger than her regular daytime diaper.
well, i priced it. i pay 13 cents per diaper for baby girl's size 3's. size 4 huggies overnights (what she was using in atlanta... i thought 4's would be way too huge since it's for 22-37 lbs but she needs it because it is 100% full in the morning) were 33 cents per diaper. i have never paid that much for a diaper... ever. but i did the math... i only need one a day so for 20 cents a day, i can avoid tons of extra laundry, giving my terrified-of-baths-baby a bath at 8am every morning when our house is still 60 degrees, and being a terrible mom for letting my baby marinate all night in urine? well, i'm sold. if i can buy the badge of "good mom" for 20 cents a day, i'm totally on board.
am i even making sense anymore? i feel slightly delusional at the moment, like someone who has been in solitary confinement to long... which for me is apparently 1.5 hours.
anyways, the take away message from this is: if your kid is soaking through diapers at night, spend $20 (target, walmart, and amazon mom all have them for that price) and try out those special night time diapers in the blue box with stars and moons on them. you will love me for it.
ps- it's really too bad i'm not a popular blogger... they actually get paid for reviews like this.
Friday, October 28, 2011
can you say... poop?
okay okay, here it is!
ps- she's wearing her halloween costume because i felt like it. y'know, just for kicks. i can do that though... because i'm the mom.
ps- she's wearing her halloween costume because i felt like it. y'know, just for kicks. i can do that though... because i'm the mom.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
one year ago
posting pictures of my baby is my way of blogging without really blogging. it takes way more work to actually think and write.
but i haven't taken any pictures in THREE days (although i actually got out our video camera for the first time in months because our baby was talking like crazy) and so i have no new pictures to post. oh my heavens, who even knew it was possible?!?! anyways, since it's 10.23.11 and i have no pictures from today, i looked back and dug up some pictures from 10.23.10 just to flash back and see what we were doing a year ago tonight.
apparently we bundled our baby in a blanket cocoon on that hideous sofa i was sooo happy to leave in california. california, you deserve it. i don't miss you. although i do miss some wonderful people i was sad to leave behind... S.A.R. i'm lookin' at you!
and i guess we also watched a hockey game on honey's crappy laptop since we had no tv.
man, that is one bald baby. she's so much cuter now. and is it just me or does her face look chubby? those cheeks are enormous, right?
ps- my parents are coming to visit next month!!! only for a few days but i'm soooooo excited!!!
pps- one of my favorite friends was telling me yesterday about how her baby can say poop. i was instantly jealous. since it's one of my favorite words, i decided to teach my baby how to say "poop" too. well, i'm happy to report that my baby can say less than 10 words, and one of them is "poop."
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
dear liza, it's been a busy day
this afternoon my non blogging sister, liza, called as i was walking out of the post office. she was asking me why we haven't talked much lately and i told her i've been pretty busy. so i told her a few things as i walked out of the post office, across the street, got baby in the car, and got myself buckled and the car started. then i told her i'd have to call her back when i got to my next place since it's illegal to talk on the phone while driving. our conversation lasted 2 minutes and 3 seconds. i didn't even call her back. because i got busy.
turns out, we need more than two arms after all.
so dear liza, here's what i did today.
wait, i'll be right back, i have to get the laundry.
okay. laundry is put away now.
here's my day. yesterday evening someone in the ward sent out an email saying they needed someone to watch their kid from 10-2. at 10:30 i wrote back saying if she still needed someone then i was available. she needed someone. so that was part of my day today.
baby woke up at 6 15. gave her a pacifier. my alarm went off at 8 30. i could hear baby babbling. i checked email and stuff in bed until 9 when i got baby up and fed her. got her dressed. got me dressed. at 9:45 the kid came over and we walked over to the bizkids playdate which took until 10:05 at least i swear because that little boy is the slowest walker you've ever met. holy cow i couldn't believe how slow he was. but he was incredibly easy and well behaved so i really can't complain.
after the playdate we went home and i tried to feed baby but really she was just wanting to go to bed. she's coming off of another nursing strike and still isn't back to full and focused feedings yet. anyways, she went down at noon and i took the little boy out into our courtyard to play but he's so self sufficient he was perfectly alright playing on his own. so with the exception of a little swinging and a little bike riding, he didn't need my help at all and i spent my time taking pictures of him. which was tricky. because he moves fast. so i was basically just chasing him around the whole time. we did come in for a few minutes to grab a bite to eat. but then we were back to playing.
baby woke up a little after 2 so i got her up and put her in the jumper while i changed this kid's SECOND poopy diaper (i don't remember signing up to change two of those), which is when his mom came to the door. i was happy to report he was an absolute dream to watch. i was also happy he is a very skinny kid because i was able to fit him in to one of baby girl's size 3's since we were not planning on needing to change him so much and there were not enough diapers in the bag.
anyways! they left at 2:15 or so and i fed baby and we were on our way to the post office which is when we talked to you! then it took at least 15 or 20 minutes to get up to menlo park and when i got to the store i realized i did not have enough hands to carry a carseat, hold jeans, rummage through the racks, and hold a phone. so i was a really bad sister and didn't call you back. ;-( i was also kind of sad that you didn't call me and tell me how you were too anxious to wait for my call.
i got two pairs of jeans. one pair regular, one pair skinny jeans. we'll see if i ever have the guts to wear them since they make my hips look absolutely enormous and they make me look like i have a tiny little bubble butt. BUT they were cheap and they are trendy and i'm bored with my clothes so i thought it would be a good way for me to go out of my comfort zone a little bit whole lot. while i was there i tried on a million different pairs of jeans. apparently they have a ten minute limit for the dressing rooms since there are only two. i got about 4 warnings two of the times i was in there. in my defense, one of the times, i spent absolutely forever cleaning up baby's terrible blowout. it was like her poop reverted back to newborn poop, which i had been really glad to say goodbye to a few weeks ago.
so after spending three, yes, THREE hours shopping for jeans, we were out of there! but we stopped by safeway on the way home because i needed milk and mozzarella cheese. but as soon as i walked in the door i forgot that i only needed those two things and i proceeded to spend forever in safeway going up and down the aisles, several of them two and three times. it was kind of ridiculous. i finally got out of there with some produce, milk, mozzarella cheese, and london broil that was half off. and maybe a few other things too. christopher and i randomly watched the first few episodes of jamie oliver's food revolution on youtube a few days ago and are rededicating ourselves to try and eat less processed foods. it's semi working. on monday when we went down the cereal aisle at walmart, christopher picked up a few kashi cereals. and then some captain crunch.... but really, we didn't get a lot of the junk that we normally do.
i got to the car and realized that it had been over five hours since baby woke up -whoops- and over 4.5 since she'd eaten - whoops again- so of course she fell asleep on the drive home. she napped in her carseat while i unloaded groceries, ate a banana, and took out the trash, diaper pail, and recycling. when she woke up i nursed her, fed her solids, and nursed her again before getting her ready for bed and putting her down at 8:30.
then i put in a load of laundry (with her dirty clothes, carseat cover, my new jeans, etc. that all needed to be washed) did some dishes, cleaned the counters, made/ate some broccoli, cleaned up more of our apartment, hung up wet clothes and put the rest in the dryer. i also did some researching on the babywise mom blog about solids feeding schedules. and then i started writing this post!
so even though that doesn't catch you up on my weekend like we'd originally planned, it catches you up on my day. so now tomorrow we don't have to spend our valuable talk time on any of this... assuming you even still read my boring blog posts... and can talk about things that are more fun and interesting than the random things that come together to make my day.
love you lots and sweet dreams.
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| baby's dirty clothes |
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| when i got home. although by that time she was asleep. and really it had only been 2.5 hours since i changed her diaper. |
 |
| passed out while i put groceries away. |
 |
| somehow in all of this my purse got 100% disorganized. i had brought that banana to eat while i was out but i forgot about it. so i ate it when i got home. defeats the purpose of bringing a snack to go. crazy how fast they bruise and turn brown but it still tasted fine. |
okay goodnight.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
major success story
and before i go play monopoly deal with my honey i just have to quickly share this monumental success story from today! the three of us were on our way home from the christmas creche exhibit at church when i leaned towards the back seat and got a whiff of a very unmistakably distinct stench. but i looked under both of baby's legs and her sleeper and carseat were both dry. how could this be? am i wrong? is it just gas? but after sniffing her (and checking her) every two minutes til we got home i thought i had to for sure be right.
when i got home, i got her out of her carseat (which was still dry!) and took her to her changing table. after unbuttoning her sleeper i got the best surprise of the day! a diaper filled (but not leaking in any way!) with lots of baby poop! WOW! i worked just like i hear it does for all of the cool moms! i was floored. seriously 100% amazed. it was GLORIOUS! i can't wait for it to happen again! i honestly can't remember this every happening before... in her carseat too! almost too good to be true.
so to all of you ungrateful moms out there moaning about changing your kid's poopy diaper. be grateful it is contained (if not, i feel for you) and smile to yourself that you get to enjoy this experience far more frequently than i do.
yikes, i just spotted a spider. i'm going to run upstairs now.
when i got home, i got her out of her carseat (which was still dry!) and took her to her changing table. after unbuttoning her sleeper i got the best surprise of the day! a diaper filled (but not leaking in any way!) with lots of baby poop! WOW! i worked just like i hear it does for all of the cool moms! i was floored. seriously 100% amazed. it was GLORIOUS! i can't wait for it to happen again! i honestly can't remember this every happening before... in her carseat too! almost too good to be true.
so to all of you ungrateful moms out there moaning about changing your kid's poopy diaper. be grateful it is contained (if not, i feel for you) and smile to yourself that you get to enjoy this experience far more frequently than i do.
yikes, i just spotted a spider. i'm going to run upstairs now.
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