Toys, Pants, Boobs and The New Frontier

Thoughts are.....

There was rejoicing tonight because Snippet held a toy for the first time and was doing lots of whacking it around and sucking on it. He has seemed disinterested in his toys until today, but his teething keys take the distinction of first toy. I put it into his hand and he grabbed right on and started laughing and drooling all over it. We caught the whole thing on video, including the bizarre, but typical, moment at which he went from a happy laughing face to dramatic contortion and fussy grumpiness, for no apparent reason.

There was also much rejoicing this week as I discovered that, at 12 weeks post-pardum, I could button three pairs of my pre-pregnancy pants. WOOT! I have been trying on my pants every week and knew I was getting close! They certainly don't fit as nicely as they used to, but at least they're wearable. I have ranked them in terms of their hoochiness---pants that can be worn around the in-laws, pants that can only be worn at the mall (where the shocking tightness of the teenagers' pants will make mine hardly noticeable) and pants that can only be worn around the house (because I might be mistaken for a call girl, otherwise.) I'm back at the gym once a week, gearing up with my trainer. In another week, when I'm back to the office, I'm intending to step up my gym visits to 2-3 times a week, taking Snippet to the gym with me. He'll hang out in his car seat accompanying me from machine to machine. Hopefully that, combined with Snippet's increased appetite of late, will suck some more of this cottage cheese off my hips so that I can give myself permission to leave the house in any of my pants that I please.

Breastfeeding is finally (FINALLY!!!) a pleasurable, non-painful experience. I meant to write a thorough update weeks ago, but just can't find the time lately for well-thought posts. Instead I will tell you that at 7 weeks post-pardum the pain started to disappear. This was about 2-3 days after I finished the antibiotics. I was so sure the pain would come back, but is seems gone for good. I attribute this to both the prescription, and my more established pumping schedule. I think the pumping is a big part of keeping things healthy, and keeping my supply up, so even though it requires using free time I don't actually have, I make it a requirement in the morning and at bedtime. Jake fondly tells Snippet I'm "feeding the robot." I also bought a hand pump to take with me when we spend the day out shopping, etc. Snippet seems to take loooooong naps when I'm out doing things and skips his normal feeding schedule. With the hand pump, I can slip into a bathroom at the mall or wherever and pump things down if I'm getting uncomfortable. This pump will also be great for when we fly out to Indiana in the spring to introduce Snippet to my parents for the first time.

Monday, January 5th, I will be returning to the office full-time and taking Snippet along as my office companion. This notion made me nervous back when he was first born, but since my boss has been steadily increasing my work load at home, I feel much more confident that I can pull it off. We have had to buy duplicates of many items for stocking Snippet's office nursery, but the investment is totally worth it both in terms of the financial daycare savings and the emotional health of both Snippet and me. I'm excited and intrigued about this new adventure we'll be taking, and feel that I am very much up to the challenge. My boss is fond of saying, "If you want to get something done, assign it to a busy person." I am currently the busiest I have ever been in my life, so I'm hopeful that I can be one of those people who excels even more when given an impossible amount of things to do. Despite my workload, I'm going to try very diligently to blog about the whole experience of working with a baby in the office. I have been unable to find much information at all online about it, so maybe it's my task to add some input to that black hole in the internet.

Superficial Rant

So, here's my bit of motherly superficial ranting for the year, since I do try awfully hard not to get caught up in the irritating little details that accompany parenting. But, I can't hold this one back:

HUGGIES can just suck my ass. Since they refuse to hug any part of my son's little tushie, they can suck mine all they want.

We were given both Pampers and Huggies as baby shower gifts, and I was intrigued to see which (if either) we would ultimately cling to as our diaper of choice. We had problems with Huggies from the very beginning when Snippet was wearing the teeny tiny newborn size. He was constantly pissing up the front of them, or leaking other, nastier things up the back or out the sides. The Pampers would occasionally cause us problems (mostly the Swaddlers variety, actually), but it was the Huggies that were so terribly consistent in their disappointment. I chaulked it up to perhaps our not being diaper pros and thought maybe we were just putting them on wrong, or not tight enough, etc.

We used up the Huggies (of which we only received one box in newborn size) and continued on with all the free Pampers. Snippet chunked up to Size One several weeks ago and we have been plowing through the Pampers in that size as well. I was saving the one box of Huggies we received for last, out of simple dread of having to use them. Having run out of the Pampers now, I cracked the box on the Huggies this morning, which spelled ultimate doom for the brand.

Shortly after his mid-morning nursing session, Snippet was writhing in agony as he prepared for a major expulsion. As I held him in my lap, trying to comfort him through it, the equivalent of Infant Armageddon ensued. Mere seconds after it began, I saw the brown stain start weeping out across his pants, his onesie and my hand that cradled his behind. He hadn't even finished his attack on humanity, and already the damn Huggies was leaking. I leapt up the stairs to the changing table, watching the grossness spread all across his clothes. I stripped him down and the nastiness was everywhere---his chest, stomach, thighs, back, and even his poor head as I pulled the disgusting onesie off of him. This was no cleanup job for a wipe, or even a whole box of wipes. This was one of those moments when only near-complete immersion into a bath of warm water and Aveeno suds will do. I draped one of his bathrobes around him, and practically flung him into his bath tub, just to get the funk away from me. I have rarely experienced the kind of relief that accompanied the moment that I plunged my sticky hands into the warm bath water and watched my poor son transform from a foul-smelling little beast into a lovely lavendar-smelling clean sweetie.

Only question now is: Is it horribly ungrateful to throw out the box of Huggies? I sure as hell will not be using them, but I feel bad (and wasteful) throwing them into the trash. Since the package is opened, I don't imagine that a community service center would accept them as a donation, and I would hate to curse anyone I personally know with them. I suppose the trash is the only suitable place for them to live, where the seagulls can trot all over their pathetic plastic bodies and squawk their worthlessness to the world.

An Alternate Way

Today I was geared up for confrontation. I rehearsed potential obstacles to my vaccination plan for Snippet, and mentally drafted my comebacks. I strategized arguments for my case, and practiced looking confident, informed and determined. And, it was all for naught.

After reading Dr. Robert Sears' book, "The Vaccine Book," I felt like he made a really good case for caution on the scheduling of vaccines. His sound reasoning, and my own common-sense gut feelings, convinced me that using the alternative vaccine schedule certainly couldn't hurt and could very well help. I called my pediatrician's office yesterday to find out for sure which vaccines were on the schedule for Snippet. Then, I compared that to Sears' recommendations and printed out a copy of the alternative schedule to give my doctor.

When the doctor opened the door to the exam room, he saw the spine of the book sitting on my lap and said, "Ohhhhh, you've been doing some research, I see. You must have some questions for me." I passed the alternative schedule to him and said, "I'm hoping we can use this schedule instead of the regular schedule." He took a minute to read through it and said, "I don't see why not. Sure."

Sure? I wasn't ready for, "Sure." I was geared for all kinds of patronizing nastiness and excuses and simple know-it-all grumpiness. That's not to say I particularly think my doctor is normally prone to any of those things, but I hadn't challenged him yet in the 2 appointments we've had, and didn't know him well enough to know what exactly his reaction was going to be. I did recall from our prenatal interview that he had said he was flexible on the vaccine schedule, but I had concerns about how flexible he really would be when it came down to it. Turns out he's wonderfully flexible. He agreed to hold exactly to Dr. Sears' schedule except for the eventual MMR shot. I remember reading that supplies of the separate M, M and R vaccines were running low, but assumed the supply would be back up by the time Snippet is due for it. Apparently, though, the company that makes those separate shots has discontinued the making of them, and all the remaining supply will be long used up by the time Snippet is ready to receive it. I'm awfully troubled by this, but I don't see any recourse outside of declining the shots altogether, which I won't do. But, that's a worry for a later time. Today there were no worries at all, and, instead, were wonderful signs of support.

My doctor wasn't perfect, though. He used some slightly sketchy inflections when saying things like, "...Mister Sears....Or, is it Dr. Sears? IS he a doctor?" To this I wanted to reply, "No, he's just some kook off the street babbling about vaccines and I chose to believe him." This was the most I sensed from him as far as hostilities go, and he didn't challenge me any further than that, so I didn't get worked up about it. Instead, I just replied, "Yes, it's Dr. Sears." I'm a little concerned that he hasn't read The Vaccine Book, and said he hadn't even heard of it, either. But, perhaps that's just me assuming it's a book of greater importance than it actually is, just because I find it important. Or, perhaps he was trying to discount its worth by making it seem obscure?

To accompany the overall good outcome of this visit was the wonderful reaction Snippet had to his first vaccine experience. He made a pissy face when given the Rotavirus, but didn't spit it out. He was very grown-up about it. When it was time for his DTaP shot, I couldn't help from tensing and felt my stomach twist up. I was awaiting what I was sure would happen---his sweet little face contorting in pain and turning twelve shades of deep red followed by aching bellows and his little tongue wagging in his fully open and wailing mouth, and me holding him, impotent to comfort his cries. The nurse stabbed the needle into his plump little thigh and it took her a full 4 seconds to plunge the liquid in. Though expecting the equivalent of infant armageddon, instead, Snippet was simply sucking away on his paci and briefly paused to grunt out, "Ehhhhh," and then kept sucking away. The nurse was truly amazed, and I was truly relieved. I gushed to him unendingly about what a brave, strong boy he was. I hope one day to use the story of his early bravery to comfort him when he receives shots at an older age and is actually aware of what is happening to him. Perhaps he can draw fresh strength from tales of his past success.

The other news from our visit is that at 9 weeks old, Snippet is now 22.5 inches long and weighs 12 pounds, 5.5 ounces, which puts him in the 70th percentile for weight. It's great to see that my cellulite is actually good for something besides taunting me in my gym clothes (which will once again see the light of day when I meet up with my trainer for our first post-pardum visit on Sunday. OY.)

Succulent Irony

I am so completely conflicted about birth control. And, I realized how completely ripe is the irony in that.

On the one hand, since Jake is still smoking, the very idea of my getting pregnant should be moot, as evidenced by four years of infertility. However, Life being the fruity nut-job that it is, there is that horrific chance that I could somehow get pregnant in spite of the nicotine and the (admittedly faulty) natural birth control that is breastfeeding.

With all due respect to those dear friends and readers who continue to struggle with infertility, as much I truly desired to have a baby, I am in absolutely no hurry to have another one. I'm actually fine having just Snippet forever and ever, but Jake and I disagree on this. He's certainly not pushing me, but very much wants to have another child. I've told him we'll just talk about later....much later......like several years later, but I have not promised to be swayed. I would be in an especially complete panic if I were to find myself pregnant again, so the question of contraception has been much on my mind. My doctor encouraged me to make a decision about it after my 6-week check-up and call the office to let them know what I had decided to do, but I am in a quagmire and paralyzed by the aforementioned irony, and the multitude of shitty birth control options available to me.

Although the mini-pill and IUD seem compatible with breastfeeding, I have moral reservations about the way they work. As far as I know, eliminating them limits me to the contraceptive throw-backs: condoms, diaphragms, spermicide, etc. I'd love to hear what any of you breastfeeding mamas out there are using, or did use. Once Snippet is weaned in a year or so, I'll be totally comfortable taking the combination pill, but until then, I need some suggestions! At this point, I'm relying on the ever-so-effective method of denial, and terrified of where that might land me....

Waking Up

It is thoroughly amazing to see Snippet awakening to the world.

In his first few weeks of life, he stared off into space, not even showing any focus on Jake's or my faces. It was distressing to feel so utterly ignored, especially when I was giving so much of myself to his care. But, then, at 4 weeks, a light clicked on and the sweet little smiles began to appear. Around 6 weeks the smiles exploded into full-on giggles, and they have just expanded in their joy in the two weeks since then. It's the silliest things that make Snippet laugh---tickling his lips and tongue with his pacifier, giving him loud kisses on his cheeks, chanting the likes of "Piggy! Piggy!" and "Mr. Baby-Pants!" in high-pitched voices as Jake and I stand over him at the changing table. These moments are such incredible salaries for the hard work that makes up each day of attending to him.

The latest point of awakening we have noticed is his new ability to actually *see* things. He used to just blankly stare right past a toy if it was held up to him, but now he actually sees them and seems amazed by them. There is a toy bar over his swing that has suddenly caught his fascination, whereas a few weeks ago the toys seemed invisible to him. I wish I could capture in words his expression---it's an intent focus, a curiosity, a desire to know, an unbroken intentness. (Well, unbroken, except by his wailing stomach, that is.) He shows the same focus on the bunnies of his crib mobile---granted, an entrancement that only lasts as long as the mobile is twirling, which gives me about two-and-a-half minutes to tidy up the nursery before I have to crank the mobile again.

About two weeks ago, he also discovered what wondrous things his hands are. His loud sucking of them is the latest unique noise around the house, and he seems to thoroughly enjoy the activity. Jake calls it, "licking the invisible lollipop" as he sticks his whole tongue out and licks happily at his fists for a solid 15 minutes before crying to be entertained externally.

I am so anxious for the day he discovers the dogs, which somehow he has not yet done, in spite of Puppy's constant licks and attempts to smother him in drool. All three dogs are his constant companions, with Puppy and Black-Dog being his most interested friends and guardians. So far, he seems to show no recognition of their existence, but I hope someday soon he will (although, once he does, they may regret all their attempts to interest him!)