The Amazing Adventures of Brew Boy

So I feel kinda bad about this posting once a week thing I've been up to lately, but here's the thing: babies are hard. I realize that this may come off as complaining, but please don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. That would be suicide in such close proximity to the woman who does all the hard work. So me? Complaining? Never.

So back to what I was saying: babies are hard. More specifically, impatient 3-month-olds with short attention spans who weigh 20 lbs and cannot yet sit up are hard. Exhausting, really. Like, crazily so.

OK, wait. I'm going to abort this train of thought before I become completely insufferable. Let's think about something else. Like Brew Boy.

Yes, Brew Boy.

As was so colorfully chronicled in our little gentian violet episode some time ago, Chins has been battling a nasty case of thrush since he was a wee babe just a few days old. Now, after three months of treatment with various medications, I fear that through good old natural selection we have created a super strain of Candida sp. that is currently plotting to take over the world.

The latest treatment we are on, and the one that has actually shown some real progress, is good old acidophilus, a fungicidal bacterium that simply loves to kill off yeast. So now, with the daily yeast body count climbing higher and higher, Chins has exposed his inner superhero...

Brew Boy!

That's right, our little boy's gut is currently its own little brewery, one that produces smells oddly reminiscent of my grandfather's apartment, across the street from the Carlsberg brewery in Copenhagen.

And at night when we're all sealed up together in the bedroom? Let's just say that yeast smells don't always produce Rockwellian visions of bread rising in a quaintly nostalgic middle-American kitchen.

It is often very cute, but since he decided a few weeks ago that he no longer wants to be burped, all that dying yeast needs to work itself out...in other ways.

OK, I'm trying figure out a funny way of relating this, but as inherently funny as farting babies are, the poor little guy has to go through bouts of screaming in pain first. Not especially funny. Hearing your little defenseless baby cry in pain has got to be one of the worst feelings a parent can have.

And those tears? Baby tears? They simply should not be allowed. I feel crushed just thinking about it...

Ugh. Baby tears. What a way to end a post.

Comments

[Danielle in Iowa]

Gosh, baby tears. You might as well have written about one-legged puppies.

[Papa Bradstein]

Ugh, that is sad, and a difficult time but it will, er, pass. We used to beg 3B to learn how to fart so we could all get some sleep. I never thought that I'd forget saying something so strange to a stranger, but I had until I read your post. It will get better; Chins will learn how to fart; it will be a mixed blessing, but the sleep will be a blessing.

[Jennifer]

Awww, poor little guy. We fought with yeast with our first born (and I'm sure 2nd). Has the wife been using apple cider vinegar to wipe out his mouth and her nipples (and everything else)? Also, we found that acidophilus didn't work as efficiently as we would have liked. We instead started to use culturelle http://www.culturelle.com/ which has a strain that survives the stomach acid where acidophilus gets slaughtered by it. It's safe for babies (I called). Our newest one ended up with an imbalance in her gut (causing serious gas pain and room clearing super powers) and this cleared it up within a week.

I hate baby tears. Just wait until Brew Boy starts using those tears to his advantage.

[andrea]

Poor Chins! Poor you! Poor DW!
You'll remember this time when he's like 10 and he and his friends are able to fart on command. And you'll wish they weren't able to.

[samantha Jo Campen]

When my nephew first starting producing tears I turned into a mess. One day, no tears. Next day, tears. I literally ran around the room offering him anything and everything to get him to stop crying. I may have even dumped out my purse and given him all the money that was in there, I was that shaken. Just by his baby tears. Ugh.

I'm so sorry he's not tooting as much as necessary. Like PB said, this will pass. But just think of the stories you'll be able to tell him when he's older. "We wanted you to fart so bad, even though it smelled like nasty beer, we even wrote about it on the internet!" Put THAT in his baby book :-)

[Henitsirk]

Poor little farty boy! Gas pain can be the worst.

[Bob]

Bi-carb mixed into water, then applied to the tongue after each feed will clear it out - apply to the nipple as well (separate cotton wool).

They say Vichy water, but Bi-card is cheaper and just as effective.