zygote daddy

what they never told me in childbirth class

Just a quick revelation:

You know that baby smell everyone talks about, usually right before their hearts goes all aflutter and they start convulsing from thoughts of overwhelming cuteness? Well, I was sitting there the other day helping Chins cope with his not-yet-broken-in gastrointestinal system, and I realized what that smell really is.

Vomit and sour milk.

Not aerosolized wonderment. Not pixie dust. Not a magical elixer made from puppies and ribbons and lollipops.

Nope, just the product of messy eating and messier digestion. Kinda takes the fun out of it, eh?

thrush + overly enthusiastic milk consumption =

...one very unhappy, very purple baby. That's what you get for smooshing your face all around while you eat, buster.

After unending rounds of ineffective prescription meds, we've had to resort to gentian violet, which is what was used "before they invented medicine," in the words of one alarmingly obtuse pharmacist we consulted during our quest for the elusive substance.

Here's a little tidbit the pharmacist probably should have known, and that I only just now found out (but can pretend to be an expert in anyway) thanks to wikipedia: despite its name, gentian violet is made from neither gentians nor violets, but is actually tecnically known as hexamethyl pararosaniline chloride, a rather frightening substance derived from coal tar. Besides being an antifungal agent used with amusing results on the mouths of infants and the nipples of breastfeeding mothers, its main application is in staining bacteria so they can be identified to species.

Ok, now that is a career path in which I can safely say I hold absolutely zero interest: bacteria systematics. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad there are people out there classifying bacteria to species. But I'm also glad I'm not one of them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I believe there's some coal tar residue on the ceiling that needs cleaning.

a post thwarted

I was going to write a post about the conversations d.w. and I have been having on the "Santa Question", but I decided I just can't top the terrific post recently penned by the intimidatingly well-spoken Her Bad Mother. Regarding whether Santa Claus is a "lie":

When I teach the story of the noble lie (which appears in Plato’s Republic) to my undergraduate students, they usually respond, initially, with indignation. It’s a lie, they say. It is meant to deceive, and deception is bad. Yes, I say, deception is bad. But not all fiction is deceptive. I remind them of origin stories, the story of the Garden of Eden and of the Fall (which, forgive me, I do not regard as plainly factual); I remind them of fables and myths; I remind them of the stories that we tell children, stories that we use for the purposes of teaching.

Stories like that of Santa, which, I think, teaches something about generosity and goodness and the idea that all children deserve to be (even if they are not in fact) loved. That the best way to celebrate Christmas is to give gifts without the expectation of reciprocation, to quietly slip a little happiness into the stockings of others.

Thanks, HBM. Another conflict avoided thanks to the power of rational thinking.

the war on baby crack becomes a quagmire

I swore I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't succumb to the tempting convenience and ease of just sticking my kid in a swinging, blinking, music-playing Neglect-o-Matic (or "baby crack", as d.w. lovingly puts it), rather than actually holding him, while singing and talking and swaying.

I was just so sure about it. This was something I simply WOULD NOT DO.

But then I realized that sometimes, just sometimes, I have to put on socks. Or change a lightbulb. Or rediscover my own personal space.

At least I draw the line at the music. Tinny, Fisher Price muzak has absolutely no business contaminating my aural experience. Period.

d.w. and I have both managed to become fairly adept at doing household chores while wearing the little dude in a wrap, but we've both come to accept that once in a while, it's ok to put him down. It doesn't make us bad parents, and it doesn't mean Chins is destined for many years of therapy (well, from this at least).

But it is a little creepy how his consciousness seems to exist on an entirely different plane when he fixates on those weird little plastic fish. Reason enough not to sit him there any longer than we have to.

Actually, sometimes I just need to put him down because he's a 13-pound(!), 24-inch-long(!) one month old(!). Yes, he is now officially off the charts. Today Sheryl (d.w.'s fabulous nurse-midwife, who we've kept on for pediatric care) pegged him somewhere considerably north of the 99th percentile for weight and length. And that means he gets rather heavy after a while, especially when he can only sort of hold up his (gigantic) head, and generally just feels like a giant larva curled up there.

So we've finally accepted we can't simply "stay the course" in the war on baby crack. I guess we'll have to be happy fighting baby crack to a draw. But we're not losing — call it a phased redeployment of child-rearing priorities.

one month already?!

the baby that ate the midwest

The boy has recently begun picking up nicknames. Most are somewhat obviously related to his favorite activities: Boob Brain, Poop Face, Burpy McFussypants. But every day, a couple of others seem more and more appropriate.

d.w. calls him Cheeks.

Me? Chins, of course.

You see, this kid just does not. stop. growing. Out as much as up, it would seem. I swear he's putting most of it into those cheeks. And his growing collection of chins, of course. Either way, he is one big little babe. I mean, no one believes this kid isn't even a month old. Sometimes we don't either. Now that he has outgrown almost all of his little newborn outfits and is pretty much entirely into the 3-month ones, his ridiculously voluminous clothing collection no longer seems all that outlandish.

At his most recent doctor's appointment last Friday he'd made it to 11 lbs 5 oz. That's fully 3 lbs more than his birth weight. In case you're among the more visually-inclined, here is his projected growth during the next month or so:

For perspective, those black dashed lines are the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles for weight.

Um...yeah.

The nice thing is that we have nothing to worry about. Since he's breastfeeding he can't really overeat, so we can just sit back and watch our little boy grow up. Actually, let me rephrase that: I can just sit back while he expands before my very eyes. d.w.'s the one actually doing all the work, whipping a boob out for a ravenous 4-week-old every 15 minutes or so.

Although I'm not sure how I'll feel with a 600-pound 2-year-old. Let's hope he's potty trained by then.

on baby wearing

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned how we've been having a wee bit of trouble getting used to using a sling. So while we were down in Des Moines the other day, we stopped in with the good people (actually it's only one person, unless you count her very adorable children) at The Stork Wearhouse.

Chins was a total trooper while we stood in the tiny spare bedroom turned wahm internet business and tried out all sorts of carriers and slings. We finally walked out with a Moby Wrap and a mai tei (which, incidentally, was made by another Des Moines wahm), and Chins has been happy as a clam ever since. Well, except for a short spell tonight when I swore his intestines were going to explode. But whatever. The moral of the story is this is one kid who LOVES to be carried.

And because of his heart-bursting cuteness we are more than happy to oblige:

when good babies go bad

Sorry for the not posting since last week. It's the end of the semester already, and apparently they make you take classes in grad school, like with exams and everything. Oh yeah, and there is a cute little three-week-old bundle of humanity kicking around. Can't forget about that angle...

So much has happened since I last posted, but I'm doing my best to avoid a "here's a boring minute-by-minute account of my baby's life" approach to blogging. I finally understand how easy a trap that is to fall into. There is nothing I love more than talking about the cute little shift of the eyebrows he just did, or that he just discovered himself in the mirror. I just need to tell myself that d.w. and I are the only ones who would possibly care about such trivialities, and we're already down in the orchestra pit for the performance. Then again, it has been fully a third of Chins' life since I was last around these parts, so surely a teeny tiny little mention of baby-related minutiae is acceptable.

Anyway.

Way back when, a million years ago, you know, right after Chins was born three weeks ago, I was totally on top of everything. I was up when he needed a diaper changed. I was already swaddling when I saw the slightest curling of his lip. A change of clothes? No prob. He was swimming in everything, and slept through it anyway.

Then I let my guard down, and it has come back to bite me bitterly in the ass.

 

Right after he was born he slept all the time. I could safely wail away with a hammer drill in the next room without the slightest worry of waking a fussy baby. He was easily passed among eagerly waiting family members without stirring. I kind of got used to how easy it was.

Now? Not so much. He spends a good couple of hours every day fussing. Not crying, really. Just your general bitching and moaning, baby-style. Though it's kind of the elephant in the room, I'm not even going to speculate on C-O-L-I-C because I can't find any wood to knock on right now. And this is still the easy period of babyhood. I fear the trajectory this kid seems to be on. Don't get me wrong, he's a great little guy. Very mellow as babies go, from what I hear. But still. I'm a little scared right now.

It would be fine if his fussiness made sense. You know, if he were lying in a cardboard box in the rain and being pecked at by ravenous sparrows or something. But nothing is wrong. Nothing. He has everything he needs: a boob and a blanket. And a really cute pair of socks shaped like little frog feet.

He's just not being very rational about this whole situation. If he could only calmly sit down (or, being three weeks old, lie on his back while flailing his arms like an overturned turtle) and think through what's going wrong, we might all be spared a little stress and commotion.

But then, I suppose it's just the fact that he's kind of new and just getting used to, you know, existence and stuff.

But I still think he's being impulsive and irrational about all of this.

this has to be the greatest feeling in the world.