Just Passed 6 months

Have we been at this parenting thing for that long?  Empress Zoe turned 6 months on 7/12/07, and it just seems to have flown by.  She is no longer the (admittedly cute) unresponsive lump of flesh that just wanted to eat and sleep.  Now she does not like to go to sleep if she can help it, and her favorite thing to do is interact with people.  She likes to sit up, and is starting to try to put herself in that position.  She can grab things easily, and has just recently discovered that her toes can reach her mouth.  She likes faces, finds baths to be relaxing, and does not like to be put to sleep, only to be helped to sleep.  She’s her own little person now.  It’s really cool.

 Foodwise, we are still on breastmilk for most of the day except dinner.  Dinner is solids, and the discovery of new tastes.  We started with Rice cereal, which still makes up the majority of the meal.  We preface this with a container of the Flavor of the Week.  We have thusfar done Carrots and Peas.  We started Bananas, but it happened to co-inside with the latest cold.  She got diarrea (spelling?) and we weren’t sure if it was the sickness or the Bananas.  We’re pretty sure it was the sickness (diarrea was going around the daycare), but we’ve held off just to make sure.  We’ll try Bananas again a little bit later.

Solids have lead to solid poop, which is kinda cool, kinda not.  Yay less spread out mess, but we need to remove the stool from the diaper if we can for the diaper people, so our garbage stinks more.  It’s a trade-off.

She’s making noises and sounds, especially when tired, which is kinda fun.  We’re waiting to see what her first word will be, and in classic parental fasion, trying to influence the outcome.   We’ll see.  She has a great laugh though, and is ticklish under her chin and on her floating ribs.  That is no end of fun.

 She’s still sleeping though the night, which is a blessing.

Oh, and she’s still cute

Bathing Poo

So last night, LC and I implemented the daily bath plan.  As in we are going to give the Zoe a bath every night, not because she is an exceptionally dirty baby, but because she loves bathtime.  Not like “this is a fun time” like, but more like “yes, this is the best thing evar!” like.  She likes it for many reasons, I think (I can only theorize since she hasn’t seen fit to tell me the exact reasons ). 

1. It seems to relax her whole body so that her gas passes easier. 
2. Both of her parents are there paying attention to her.  We try to do this, but usually one or the other is taking care of her and playing with her.
3. She loves water in her mouth.  Jude and Nick got her the baby bathtub which has a little shower extension that we use to wet her down (I would suggest this tub for any parent), she always ALWAYS opens her mouth wide and moves her face trying to get as much water in it.  It hilarious and strange.
4. She has no clothes.  Like her father, she wants no clothes on at any time.  No diaper either, naked is best evidently.

So there we are, bathing the little one.  LC is in charge of actual bathing this time, using the shampoo, cleaning her, and I get the fun job of rinsing her and just generally spraying her with water.  We have all her clothes in the bathroom, and one diaper for putting her back in.  We are both sitting around the tub, pantless cause otherwise our clothes get wet, with the her tub in the middle of the big tub.  Next thing I know, LC is laughing and looking very perplexed.  It seems Zoe decided she was really relaxed and pooed in the tub.  Well, this was funny, but we were kinda lost as to what to due.  I mean, she pooed in her bath water.  I’m sure it happened to millions of other parents, but what do you do in that situation?  We removed the offending poo, and Joe grabbed the little sling with Zoe so I could clean the tub and refresh the water.  While I am sanitizing the tub, Zoe poos her on the sling.  In an effort to move her onto a diaper, LC picks her up and she poos on his leg, and then pees on him.  I theorize that she knew this time LC and I were going to switch who dried her after her bath.  Its usually LC, and she usually pees on him.  I think all this poo was in an effort to make sure she had a chance to pee on dad.  I mean, thats what he is there for right?

 Anyway, we finally get her onto the bathroom floor, on a cloth diaper.  I am cleaning both tubs (yeah scrubbing bubbles) so we can restart the whole bath cause now she REALLY needs cleaning.  I look over and LC is looking horrified at our child.  Looking down, she has managed to cover the ENTIRE diaper in poo.  This is not a small diaper.  She went through 8 diapers that time.

 We continue the bath.  We finish the bath, Zoe being extremely happy during the whole thing. 

 However, as a warning to her parents, she peed on me as I was drying her.  I mean, really, was that part necessary?

And on the 7th day…

After 7 days, our lovely Empress has finally had a bowel movement.  Now when I say ‘She pooped’, most people probably think I’m talking about a mostly filled diaper, or perhaps a relieved baby.

No, I’m talking about Niagra Falls in poop form.  I’m talking about 4 diapers that looked like they were in a war with a mustard bottle and lost.  I’m talking about a ‘bowel movement’ in the same way newscasters talk about a ‘troop movement’.  She POOPED.  Then, she slept for most of the rest of the day.

Some people believe that a certain benevolent god created the universe in 6 days.  I didn’t really think that was overly possible before, but now it seems infinitely more plausible.  And if it was an act of creation similar to what the Empress just did, I don’t blame him for resting on the seventh day.

 

Go ahead and sleep honey.  You’ve already proven you have more stamina then God. 

POOP

I thought people were exaggerating when they told me my world would become about poop after my baby was born.  Boy was I wrong!!  The poop update is the second thing Lady Spock and I say to each other after ‘Hi’.  It’s the only real gauge we have for how she’s doing in the long term.  We can see (and hear!) by her reactions how she is doing right now, but the diaper is the gauge for how things are overall.  At first, she was pooping a lot, which is how it should be (like 6-8 bowel movements per day), but about a week ago she moved on to the next stage in pooping, where she doesn’t poop for days, or even a week.  A WEEK!!!  Do you know how much PAIN I would be in if I didn’t poop for a week??  But it’s normal for babies her age.  Breast milk is really really good for babies, so she absorbs most of it, leaving very little to be pooped out.

This would not be so concerning if it weren’t for the fact that she has tons of gas.  Seriously, farting like every 30 minutes or less for the last 5 days.  It causes her a decent amount of pain, which really sucks for her (cause, ya know, she’s in pain), and also really sucks for us (because she cries when she hurts, which makes it difficult to figure out when gas is ~not~ the problem).  Either way, there’s gas, and we feel bad for our baby, but there’s not really much we can do about it.  We are going to play w/ Lady Spock’s diet to see if that is contributing, and we are going to keep Empress Zoe upright for like 10-15 mins after feeding to see if that helps get extra gas out of the tummy before it makes it into the intestines, but we are pretty sure that the problem is swallowed air.  She swallows it when she cries, when she eats, and when she hiccups (which she does fairly regularly).  Unfortunately, there’s not really anything we can do about swallowed air.  I don’t know, we’ll see.

I just wish I could get as excited about my own bowel movements as I do hers.  Then again, maybe not…