Young Baby Young

Today, Wednesday, is our weekly playgroup at the library.  Last week was our first time and Emily slept through the whole thing.  There were about 15 adult/child pairs in attendance and child ages ranged from 4 weeks (Emily) to 3 years old.  As so many people have noted: this is more about the parents getting out and socializing and less about the kids.

Today, Emily stayed awake for much of her hour there and many of the young kids came over to see her.  A few touched her gently with the sweetness and innocence that only children have. 

There appear to be some fun parents in the group.  There’s a stay-at-home dad who is very friendly and open; there’s a woman who knows every child’s name but struggles when it comes to the adult names; there’s a cross-section of young and old, hippy and yuppy, parents and caregivers.  I’m pleased that we’re starting to get to know people.

Tomorrow, Thursday, a woman from an organization called “Parents are Teachers Too” is coming to the house to give me some education on being a first-time parent.  We don’t know a lot about the program, but it’s free and highly-recommended, so why not?  Let’s see what information they have to impart.

On Monday, we go to our first La Leche League meeting in Ellsworth.  LLL is an international organization that promotes breastfeeding (and bonding and attachment parenting).  I’m interested to go and hear about how other new mothers handle some of the trials and tribulations.

It’s been a rough week in the Young household.  It seems our youngest constituent is unhappy about almost everything.  Or was, anyway.  Learning about a baby’s needs has not been intuitive for us, but I think we’re making definite progress.

Latest mistake: in all of the books I have on babies, they have this general rule of thumb that babies feed on one breast for 15-20 minutes, then they pause; you can offer the other side at that time; they may or may not be interested; all in all, it takes about 30 minutes to feed your baby. 

Emily was by the book.  She would eat for a while, have a little nap; we’d change her diaper to wake her back up; she’d eat from the other side; she’d finish.  Then the ordeal would begin where she would scream for an hour.  We figured it must be gas, so we’d bend her in this position and that, pounding on her little tiny back, trying to get all of the burps up.  We’d eventually convince her to go to sleep. 

A few days ago, I threw the towel in.  She seemed to be saying that she was hungry all of the time, but how could that be?  Didn’t she just eat an hour ago?  I finally said FINE, I’ll feed the child whenever she claims she’s hungry; we’ll see how that goes.  We’ll throw away our clocks and base everything on her whims.

Lo!  It went fantastically well!  I learned a very important thing about Emily: she takes forever to eat.  Remember how she used to cry and cry after a feeding?  And we thought it was gas?  She was just hungry!  (She still has the gas/reflux issues, but they don’t bother her nearly as much as hunger does.)  Her little cat naps in the middle were not a sign that she was done; she just needed a chance to digest a little before forging onward.

So, now that we’ve changed our feeding schedule to suit Miss Emily’s needs, she’s much happier.  So much happier, in fact, that she went four hours between feedings.  Which means that I, for the first time in 5 weeks, got more than two hours of sleep at a time.  How rejuvenating!  I feel like I’m 29 again!

[Good segue, Self!]  My 30th birthday came and went with little acknowledgment by yours truly.  I was too tired to care much that day.  But friends and family did a great job of making it special, including lots of emails, phone calls, cards, gifts, flowers, and a dinner out with the family.  Oh, and my man Barack took office.  That was pretty sweet.  As long as he faithfully does his job — no, wait — as long as he does his job faithfully — no — faithfully, as long as he does — sigh.

We’re trying to transition a bottle feeding into our new plan, too.  We’d really like to have Chris do one of the feedings.  So far, she’s lukewarm about the idea at best.  She did take the bottle, but she hasn’t yet had a full meal.  She eyes the “fake booby” suspiciously and glares at Daddy. 

It was the strangest thing — I found myself mildly jealous when she took her first bottle.  I should have been happy — maybe I can get five hours of sleep one of these nights — and yet I was a little saddened.  Not to worry: I got over that pretty quickly.

Other big news in the world of Emily: she’s becoming much more alert.  We actually get to see those pretty blue eyes once in a while; she looks around and focuses on things.  She’s even started to smile!  That’s enough to melt your heart. 

Emily only has a fleeting interest in MLK, Jr. — I guess we should cut her some slack, seeing as she’s only 4 weeks old.  (Four weeks old?  Surely that calls for cake!  Hmm, I wonder why I’m not losing this post-natal weight quickly?)  We managed to get out of the house for a little while, ordeal though it was.  First she needed to be fed, then she needed to scream for a little while, then whaddyaknow, she needed to eat again, and then there was the requisite spit-up-all-over-yourself-and-your-caretaker (i.e. Momma), so another change of clothing was needed.  But by 1pm, by golly, we were ready to leave the house for a few hours and take a trip to Grammy Ann’s house.

Here’s a typical day in the life of Emily:

1.  Sleep soundly.  Pretend you’re a lady.  Put your pinkies in the air for good measure.  Surely no one will believe those farts came from you when you’re acting like a lady.

2.  Wake up from sound sleep hollering like it’s going out of style.  Insist on being fed immediately.  Then force your frantic mother to put you in your Maya Wrap sling to calm you down.  (Bjorn for President?  Maya for Secretary of State!)

3.  When momentarily content, let Momma take pictures of whatever she wants.  (Understand that it’s the small things that make her happy.  She can’t help that she’s simple.)

4.  Again, suck it up and let Momma take stupid pictures of you.  Let her pretend that a Christmas tree ornament should really be some sort of gangsta bling.  Roll eyes and sigh loudly when she turns her back on you.

5.  Demand another feeding (as loudly as possible), then refuse to be comforted by anyone but Daddy.  When satisfied with positioning on Daddy’s chest and proximity of dogs, resume angelic face.

6.  Wake from nap, demand more food, play with Nathan for a few minutes.

7.  Receive visitors, let them act like fools, chuckle quietly to self, feign sound sleep.

8.  Allow people to love on you, at least temporarily, because you know they may implode if you deny them.  You needn’t martyr yourself, though; feel free to scream lustily when you get tired of this game.  It’s likely someone will feed you to shut you up.

9.  After satisfying yourself with milk, slip into a happy coma. 

10.  Repeat.

It’s a beautiful snowy day here in Blue Hill and we’re itching to leave the house.  Alas, there’s no good reason to take your 4-week-old baby out in this weather if you don’t need to, so we’re homebound.  We’re ignoring the four million projects we could be doing and instead are proclaiming our boredom.  I was really looking forward to our big excursion to Sam’s Club, but it will apparently have to wait for another day.  Sigh.  There will be no purchase of 98267 Pampers for me today.

We’ve learned a new art to making the littlest Young happy: swaddle her in blankets.  I never noticed that it appeased her particularly — perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention.  She was cranky as could be last night, until we wrapped her up in Auntie Amy’s quilt.  Then she slept peacefully.  That’s it?  That’s all it took?  I’ve worn a hole in the carpet from walking around and all she wanted was her blanket folded a certain way?  You’ve got to be kidding me!  The art of getting to know what your child needs is a very interesting one.  She’s training us, slowly but surely.

Little E chillin’ on her changing pad:

Little E lookin’ for some food:

Emily and I went to the doctor yesterday for a regular check-up.  I can proudly tell you that she weighs 8lb, 11oz and measures 21.5 inches long.  (She’s gained a pound since birth!  That’s my girl.)  She’s in the 50th percentile for weight and 75 percentile for height.  I’ve already started contacting modeling agencies to see if they want to sign her on.  They said they’ll consider it as soon as the baby acne stage passes.  Obviously, I will be her manager — Hollywood history tells us that this is always a good idea for unstrained parent/child relations.

I wanted to capture her doing something cute yesterday and managed to get this not-so-flattering picture of her.  I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw it, so obviously I’m going to share it with everyone in the world.  As you would.

Perhaps I should have turned the flash off first?!  It’s funny every time.  Poor thing.  That’s milk dripping off the side of her face….

A little research has led me to my first playgroup meeting next Wednesday at the library!  It’s for parents with kids between infancy and age 3.  The nice woman I spoke to said that at yesterday’s meeting, there were 15 families!  Well, that sounds like a good way to get to know young families around here, eh?  We’re also going to check out storyhour at the library on Tuesdays.  But not next Tuesday — we’ll be watching B-rock get sworn in as Prezi while I turn the big 3-0.

Other big news: we’ll be getting a Sam’s Club membership soon.  I know, I know, many people are very anti-Sammy W, but dang, diapers are expensive, yo!  And this child knows how to fill a Pamper!  Hotdamn, this girl is impressive.  We’re hoping that our prestigious club membership can help us pinch a penny or two, although we’re skeptical: we’re likely to take our savings and reinvest in something not totally necessary, like a pound of ripe peaches, a gallon of peanuts, or a smattering of books.

I’m working on uploading some videos of Emily being adorable.  Given that she’s only 3 weeks old, she’s not really DOING anything, but this proud momma still finds her antics most entertaining.  So I’ll share.  Just as soon as YouTube feels fit to obey my commands.  Perhaps it would help if I logged out of the other 28 programs I have open?

Finally, it was time to bust out the coveted Baby Bjorn.  For those of you who are not baby-product savvy, the Baby Bjorn is a front carrier that always gets rave reviews from new parents.  I took out Emily’s yesterday and managed to put the thing together.  I slipped her into the holes and off we went, bouncing through the house happily.  I took a picture of us to document the moment (as Carrie noted, timed photos may not be a good idea just yet…we’re sticking with mirror images for now):

(I apparently needed to use my other hand as a counterbalance?)

I learned that Emily does not (I repeat: does NOT) like asparagus or broccoli.  Oy.  We’ve had a long few nights of gastric unhappiness.  This morning, Bjorn is doing the trick of keeping her upright and content — it looked like an impossible feat, but Bjorn was man enough to give it a go.  Boo-yah!  Bjorn for president!

Grandma Jane and Grandma Ann will be coming over occasionally to sit with Emily while I try to get some basic chores done around the house.  According to all dogs and babies present, Monday’s visit from Jane was a fabulous success:

Yesterday was our big excursion to Ellsworth to get my drivers license renewed.  Silly me, I failed to note that new laws require you to bring various pieces of documentation.  I was more worried about trying to get my hair combed so that I wouldn’t be ashamed of my ID for the next 7 years.  The last picture was pretty darn rockstar…that’s a hard standard to beat.  Anyway, I got there and realized oops, I need a passport, a marriage certificate, tax forms, a vial of goat’s blood, immunization records, proof of blood type, a tithe, and an autographed picture of Barry White for the DMV employee.  I quickly rushed to the bank (which is conveniently about 20 feet away) and went digging through my safe deposit box, knowing that I always keep passports and goat’s blood in there.  Ack!  Things are out of order!  Life is not good!  I went back and tried to offer them other things from the Mary Poppins carpet bag I seem to be carrying around all of the time – like a supply of newborn Pampers, some Wet Wipes, a piece of stale Orbit gum, and a very soft receiving blanket — surprising, none of these things met with their approval.  Okay, how ’bout one spit-up cloth, a pen, and two plastic bags?  Surely you can’t refuse that one?  Wow, when did the DMV people become so spiteful?  Long story short: the DMV refused to accept my expired passport as proof of citizenship, so I have to go back.  They have no idea how hard it was to time that journey with an infant, but I suppose that’s not their problem.  Emily looked good for the outing, anyway.

I was chuckling to myself the other day as I got ready for bed about how much things have changed in the past few weeks (3w, 2d to be precise).  Here’s what my nightstand looks like now:

It has all of the staples on it.  Breastfeeding is thirsty business, so the water bottle is a new constant companion.  The baby bible, and baby bible jr, are also necessary resources.  (They are the closest things we can find to manuals for this critter.  Luckily, unlike other instructional guides, they weren’t written in Chinese and roughly translated into English.)  Hand sanitizer?  I’ll just note for the record that babies are filthy.  Mylicon?  A mother’s best friend — it’s a gas reliever for burpy babies.

We finally got “the letters” hung above her crib.  I continue to note that there’s no Q in her name, or a hyphen, or an apostrophe, or an X…although we did manage to get two Ys in her full name.

Emily’s thoughts on this?  It seems to meet with her approval.

The big news of the day: Emily lost her umbilical cord!  We’re so proud.  I nearly made a cake for myself to celebrate, but managed to refrain and have hot cocoa instead. 

So the umbilical cord fell off first thing this morning and she was very excited for Chris to wake up so she could tell him all about it.  We got this picture of her, and then the nasty little stump went missing (that’s the black thing in the picture below).  We couldn’t find it anywhere, but the dog was suddenly begging for more treats.  More?  Oh, that’s disgusting!  What a gross little dog!  Good thing we weren’t planning to save the cord for her.

Yesterday was our big trip to Bar Harbor to meet Gwen.  It was fun to meet up with friends who are going through a parallel experience!  As we compared stories, there were many similarities about the pregnancies, labors, and life since.  For example, both girls are experiencing their bouts of acne right now.  (Babies have their mothers’ hormones in their systems from being in the womb, so around 2-3 weeks after birth, they usually develop acne outbreaks that pass quickly.)  Here was Emily on the ride over — wisely getting some rest before the big event:

She was happily sporting her favorite bunny cap for the big day.

Here are the proud daddys (note that they’re holding the wrong babies):

and the proud mommas (holding the correct babies):

Given that Gwen was bigger than Emily and could already hold her own head up (!), we thought it was very prudent of Emily not to spout off about being two days older.  Besides, Gwen clued Emily in on the joys of baby swings…Emily was outraged that we own TWO and haven’t set them up for her yet.  We hurried home and set the first one up for our princess:

Emily was none too happy about leaving her new friend.  We experienced a minor meltdown on the drive home:

Clearly, we’ll have to go back and visit again soon.  Or else.

My proclamation that letting Emily sleep upright had cured all of her nighttime issues was, alas, a little premature.  The next night she was back to being a crabby baby.  Last night I tried a new approach: I burped that baby every 38 seconds as she was eating to try to keep her gas/reflux issues to a minimum.  By George, it worked beautifully!  She was smiling in her sleep all night (probably because she was filling her diaper, but I choose to believe it was something I did).  We’ll see if we can keep this impressive trend going for more than one night.  It’s probably not much of a trend if it only happens once.

Chris took some time today to put together her Rolls Royce of swings, given to her by Grandma Mary Ann and Grandpa Steve.  Emily supervised from her cocoon on the floor (with her eyes closed, no less), and Nathan supervised from his vantage point by the heating vent.

The end result: a happy Emily Jane, sans umbilical cord, rocking a very Michael Jackson one sock sort of look, lulled to sleep by the sounds of the rainforest.

Chris ran reconnaissance at work and talked to “the girls” about what seemed to be a reflux issue with Emily.  For the past week, we’ve had some rough nights.  As soon as I would lay her down in her bassinet, she would start shrieking wildly.  I’d pick her up and she’d calm down.  When we noticed the pattern of her screams being triggered by spit-up and gurgling noises, we figured it might be infant reflux, a very common issue for babies.  We talked to some mothers at work and got the skinny: keep her upright all night long.  She’ll thank you for it.

So, last night I had her sleeping sitting upright.  SHE LOVED IT.  She slept soundly for 2- and 3- hour stretches, making her momma so proud.  We visit her doctor on Wednesday for a standard visit, so we’ll find out then if we need to invest in something specific for her sleeping comfort.  (I have no doubt that there’s a special pediatrician-approved apparatus that we simply must have…for a mere $57.95…this baby business is quite lucrative….)  I’m just glad that we were able to make her comfortable.  It’s terrible to see her screaming like that.  As such, she was not initially in good form for her big excursion to Walmart yesterday, but she managed to pull it together and avoid getting a sticker plastered to her face:

What else is new in Miss Emily’s life?  She has her first playdate tomorrow with a friend’s daughter who was born on 12/24.  Hopefully Emily won’t rub it in that she’s 2 days older than Gwen.  At this age, two days is a difference-maker (according to Emily, anyway).  You never know what’s going to pop out of her mouth these days.

We got a fabulous gift yesterday.  A family member, Tina, had called when Emily was born and said that she’d like to bring dinner up to us one night.  Heck yes, we’ll take it!  So last night was the big night.  We didn’t know what she was bringing, but figured it would be something like a casserole and bread.  Pshaw!  There’s no casserole-baking for Tina.  No, she brought us a mini Thanksgiving dinner!  There was a whole chicken — filled with stuffing, of course — mashed potatoes, squash, green bean casserole, gravy, and cookies for dessert.  Who does that?!  We were so impressed.  And it was all delicious.  I’ve decided that we’ll be inviting ourselves to their house next Thanksgiving….  Do you think it would be poor form to return the containers and request refills?

I’m convinced my child is part Elf.  (Clearly, this is not a Gimpel gene; I blame the Youngs for this.)  Look at this furry little ear and try to tell me she’s not elfen:

I tried to capture Emily being cute this afternoon.  The camera really didn’t do her justice, and instead she looks like a Kung Fu master of sorts.  Shrug.  That’s kind of funny, too, so I include it here for your viewing pleasure:

That last one shows a lot of promise, don’t you think?  I wonder if Mr. Miagi is still available for apprenticeships.

I was reminded the other day of the movie Castaway.  Tom Hanks was on the island and he was having detailed conversations with Wilson.  When he had the idea to build his watercraft to get away, he and Wilson argued about some of the details.  Of course, you could only hear Tom Hanks’s side of the conversation.  If someone were to Big Brother their way into our house, I think it would be the same.  Emily and I have many conversations all day long, and we don’t always agree.  Is this a sign that I’m losing it?  Already?!

I know it’s normal for all new moms to have meltdowns; I guess I should take comfort in knowing that I am, after years of lively debate, ”normal”.  While Emily is a very good baby, she does do baby things, including crying at inconvenient hours and keeping me from getting my 10 hours of beauty rest.  With holiday bustling and out-of-town visitors, I finally had me a meltdown (or three).  But it’s been like 5 days since the last one, so I think I’m doing pretty well.  I keep reminding myself that I’m on maternity leave: the only thing I have to do right now is take care of Emily.  So if she’s up at 3am wanting to eat, who cares?  It’s a hard mindset to adopt, but I’m working on it.  The other thing I keep reminding myself is that infant’s aren’t manipulative — when they need something, it’s your job to tend to it, not to think, “Oh, she’s looking for attention; I shouldn’t give it to her.”

Chris went back to work on Monday; we’re all trying to get used to our new schedules.  Chris went through some Emily withdrawal yesterday.  They were happy to be reunited last night (and the dogs are always happy to see Daddy):

If your perceptive mind wonders, “Does that child have a mullet?” after viewing the pictures above, let me be the first to assure you that she most definitely does.  Billy Ray Cyrus, eat your heart out!  Business in the front…party in the back!

I guess we’ll just add this to the list of things she’s going to be mad at me for in a few years….  We try to keep a hat on her most days so she doesn’t get mobbed by paparazzi.

If you’ve ever wondered how I’m managing to type while carrying a baby, let me assure you that it does take some skill.  Between my Boppy pillow and my Maya Wrap (both fabulous inventions, by the way), we manage to make it work.  Here’s an aerial picture I took of yesterday’s contortions:

Let me tell you, not adding a blog entry in a nearly a week has really thrown me off.  I hardly know where to begin.  Emily became 2 weeks old as of yesterday (I ate a cake on her behalf.  I wonder if 2 weeks and 1 day warrants another one?).  She’s becoming more alert and a little person in her own right.  Her new favorite trick is to spit up milk and, if we’re lucky, to blow it out her nose.  The funny thing is the sequence of events: milk comes up, she looks confused, and then she screams lustily.  I’m not sure if she’s in pain or simply embarrassed.  I suspect it’s the latter.

We had a big day today: we went to the post office, the bank ATM, and the grocery store.  Those may sound like mundane tasks to the uninitiated, but when you’re carrying an eight-pound ticking time bomb everywhere, even the most mundane tasks are filled with intrigue and daring.  Will she wake up and force me to abandon my half-full shopping cart?  Will she spit-up on the new 83-year-old lady who kindly bends down to gaze adoringly at her?  Will she impress the masses with one of her high-velocity, high-volume bowel moments?  Worse yet, will they think that was me and not the baby??  Yeah, these are all things the childless public has never had to consider.  Anyway, our excursions went well and we were both exhausted upon returning home.  It was one small step for Mommy; one giant leap for Mommykind.

We got to see some of my family this weekend when they came to town on a last-minute visiting spree.  Of course, Miss Emily enjoyed being passed around and coddled.

with Aunt Linda

with Aunt Linda and Nadia, the closest thing she’ll have to a cousin.

with my cousin, Cindy, and her daughter Nadia

Nadia with her exceptionally-tolerant Maltese, Twink (short for Twinkle Toes, of course)

I’m sure there’s other news I’m forgetting, but such is life these days.  I’ll just end this entry with a grouping of cute pictures of Emily.  She’s so darn smishy…I don’t even know that that’s a word, but it seems to capture my pinching, smushing sentiment.

I told Chris the other day that we’ll need to make a conscious effort to include me in the pictures because I tend t obe on the other side of the lens most days.  I don’t want her to think she was raised by Charlie Brown’s school teacher or something.  Whaa whaaa wha whaaa.  Wha wha?  Wha!