momgineering

They say 'necessity is the mother of invention.' If by necessity they mean a squirming 4 month old baby with acid reflux who keeps sliding down the hill of her elevated mattress, I'd say this is true. If by mother they mean...well, any mother, then I'd say this is true too. 


We've been forced to get pretty creative with the sleeping arrangements now that Caroline is getting bigger. We are, I'm happy to announce, SWADDLE-FREE in this household!! This is a monumental achievement, one that didn't come without a lot of fretting and crying and hand-holding. (Ok Caroline had a bit of adjusting to do too.) It took a few nights for her to get used to her newfound freedom but thankfully she adapted reasonably well. However, we quickly discovered that sleeping swaddle-free in the nap nanny was a recipe for disaster. She kept squirming and slumping her way down to the bottom of the hill. One morning I awoke to her sad little cries and turned on the monitor to see her head hanging off the side upside down at the bottom of the nap nanny. Definitely not a Dr.Spock-approved sleeping arrangement. So we decided it was time to transition to sleeping in her crib.


Due to her acid reflux, her pediatrician and pediatric GI recommended that she sleep in an elevated position. This worked perfectly when we were using the baby papasan chair and then the nap nanny, but posed a bit of a challenge when sleeping in the crib. I remember asking the pediatrician how we should elevate her crib. He said use books, blankets, whatever works under her mattress to achieve a slight incline. What I SHOULD have asked him was how he proposed that we get her to STAY in that position. Her first night in the crib with the elevated mattress, I was awoken with sad muffled screeches as she slid down the hill of her mattress and slumped into an uncomfortable heap, arms dangling through the slats of the crib. NOTE TO SELF: a baby in motion will stay in motion. We needed to find some way to keep her at the top of the hill.


Enter Amazon, purveyor of all things entirely unnecessary in the world of parenting. A quick search yielded dozens of products promising 'a safe and restful night's sleep for you and your baby.' No sweeter words have ever been uttered to a sleep-deprived parent. SOLD. I shelled out $100 for what amounted to a hefty heap of velcro that 'secured' the infant to the bed.


But the more I thought about it (and the more the husband hyperventilated about how we are 'hemorraging money' right now), I decided surely we could come up with something better. I got a college edumacation. The hubs was a mechanic in the airforce. Give us some duct tape, an elastic band, a Boppy, and a few fluffy towels and we're in business.


Step One: insert copious amount of unused baby blankets into a level heap at one end of her crib. (Alas, even though the babe was born in February we've had no need to bundle her. It's been about 102 degrees here since March.)

Step Two: Roll up a fluffy towel, secure with an elastic band, and wedge in between the Boppy. Place on top of mattress.

Step Three: Put on mattress fitted sheet and shove into crib, attempting to keep some small resemblance of an incline position with the heaped-up blankets.

Step Four: insert baby. Observe baby's happiness at the snug embrace of the comfy arrangements.

So far, knock on wood, it seems to be working. She hasn't been found slumped over at the bottom of the hill yet. Looks like I might be able to return the Amazon contraption after all. The hubs will be so delighted. Until he sees next month's credit card bill....

P.S. A little lagniappe. When she's not sleeping this is what she likes to do. (Video taken back during the swaddle-and-nap-nanny days. Sigh. Farewell swaddle....)

jumping for joy

We've been on the new formula for exactly 4 weeks now and I'm thrilled to report that SHE'S CURED!! We have a new baby on our hands! Her spitting up has drastically reduced....she's not spitting up 1/10 of what she used to. It's just normal baby spit up now, not the constant all-day-every-day vomitfest that had been taking place. Within two days of switching to the new formula, her eating consumption dropped from 35-40 ounces per day, down to 25 ounces per day because she is not spitting up as much any more. We haven't had any more scary gagging and choking incidents either. Such a relief. Of course insurance is refusing to cover the formula, despite the fact that we have a letter from the doctor stating that it's medically necessary. So for the forseeable future we'll be shelling out about $400 per month for formula. But if it makes her feel better it's all worth it.


And we finally have her medicine under control, so that has eliminated the all day fussing and crying that were once plaguing us. Turns out there's a HUGE difference in the medicine depending on where we get the script filled. Walgreens, CVS, etc (which are the only ones covered by insurance) do a terrible job...the medicine is very thin and watery and presumably tastes awful, because she make a terrible face and spits it out. The small private independant pharmacies (which of course are not covered by insurance) are the only ones that do a good job...the medicine is thick and properly suspended and tastes better, so she'll actually swallow it. So we'll just keep shelling out $75 per month for the good meds. 


To say that I have a bitter distaste for the medical/pharmaceutical/insurance industries right now is an understatement. The doctors all refused to listen to me when I kept bringing up the possible milk allergy...if I had listened to them I'd still be dealing with a screaming baby. ("She's gaining weight; she's fine."  "It's colic, there's nothing you can do."  "She'll just outgrow it."  "Only 2 out of 10 babies with reflux actually have a milk allergy; it's just reflux.") The insurance idiots are refusing to cover anything that has actually helped her; if it's not on their little checklist forget it. Throw out logic and reason and just adhere to the almighty checklist. And despite the fact that Houston is the 4th largest city in the nation, with 938457984 pharmacies in the city, I have only found ONE pharmacy way out in B.F.E. that can make the compounded prevacid correctly. This whole experience has been maddening. My heart goes out to those who have serious continual illness that forces them to deal with this BS on a regular basis. What a nightmare.


But on a lighter note, with her feeling better she is really kicking into high gear now, moving and shaking and always on the go! She started doing the "half roll" last week, where she flopped over from her back to her side but couldn't quite get over her arm to complete the roll.  This week she finally managed a complete roll, and now all she wants to do is practice rolling.

She's also getting pretty good at squirming her way around to get where she wants. When I lay her on the middle of the blanket in my closet while I'm getting dressed, she squirms her way over to my clothes to play with them. If I lay her in the middle of her room, she squirms her way over to the crib or the dresser. Let the baby chasing begin...

And we put together her jumperoo and she LOVES it!! It's her absolute favorite toy right now. She loves pushing off her legs and tap dancing around. 


So much to be thankful for right now....we're all jumping for joy in this household!

hip hip hooray for father's day!

Before we had Caroline I was pretty nervous about how Bill and I would be as parents. After all, there's no instruction manual with babies, and Bill and I both like to plan and prepare as much as possible. But we've realized this is more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-puked-on-pants kind of gig. To my great delight, I think we've done a pretty decent job so far. We make a good team. He walks the baby in the stroller while I cook dinner and eat. Then when they come back, he passes the baby to me and I giver her a bath while he eats dinner and cleans up. We've developed a nice ebb-and-flow pattern between us...when one is stressed out, the other takes over the baby. I cannot imagine doing this alone without the help of the Daddy of the family. He is a natural-born caretaker, and he does everything he can to help out with his little family. In honor of Father's Day, here's my Top 10 Favorite Daddy Moments/Reasons We Love Daddy:


10. Baby's First Car Wreck,  a cherished memory that sits right along side her birth certificate and going-home photo. Getting Caroline dressed and strapped into her carseat was a nerve-wracking ordeal, since we were not well-skilled in either department. Add to that a few nights of sleep deprivation, plus hauling a small mountain of baby gear and luggage into the car, and you've got one frazzled daddy. So frazzled, that when the big moment finally came and we were making the famed trip home from the hospital with our new baby....Daddy backed right into another car parked behind us. No harm done, but inspecting vehicles for signs of damage was not exactly the way we had envisioned bringing home our little bundle of joy.


9. Daddy's guide to swaddling- the "double bag" way. I still giggle every time I think of the night I came home to find poor Petunia mummified in not one, but TWO swaddle blankets. Daddy said she kept busting out, so he nipped that in the bud with the ol' double bag approach. Leave it to Daddies and their fatherly engineering..


8. Daddy diaper duty, otherwise known as 'the first time Bill barfed from a dirty diaper.' There was choking. There was gagging. There was an obscene amount of profanity. There was lysol and baby wipes and hand sanitizer for days. He claims his nose hairs are still burned from the incident and thus he is exempt from changing poopy diapers.


7. "It's a...girl?" What a joyous long-awaited moment in the delivery room. 9 months of wondering, pondering, guessing, dreaming, and anticipating the arrival of our unknown-gender baby. All day long the doctors and nurses were saying they thought we were having a boy, based on the heartrate. The moment of truth finally arrived, and the doctor let Bill make the big announcement. I'll never forget the surprised-and-somewhat-confused sentiment in his voice as he announced her sex. 


6. Always on the Job, multi-tasking and keeping everything rolling even when he's wearing two hats at once. On a few occasions I've needed him to help out at home during the day, due to  my being sick or having a doctor/dentist appointment. Daddy breaks out the teleconference headseat and the baby bjorn and keeps both the Exxon employees and the baby happy. I suspect there might have been a bit of Baby Benadryl involved on one or more occasions, but hey. I don't look a gifthorse in the mouth.

5. Always keeping us safe, even from the swine flu. Even when stricken with a mysterious illness of unidentifiable origins, Daddy dons the face mask and keeps up with his end of the baby duties. 

4. Daddy vs. made-in-china-10,000-unassembled-pieces Ikea furniture. He has successfully assembled and installed every single piece of furniture in her nursery and baby apparatus in our house. I would rather pull out my eyelashes one by one than read through step by step instructions, but Daddy handles it like a pro. And nothing has collapsed yet either! 


3. Daddy-0, Nail Clippers-2.  Baby's first flesh wound was unfortunately parent-inflicted. But I'll give him credit for at least trying. After 2 failed attempts involving a miniscule amount of blood and lots of screaming, we ditched the clippers and went to filing instead. Bravo to Daddy for even trying.


2. Midnight Feedings...and 2 am feedings...and 3:30 feedings...and 5:00 feedings. Daddy has been more than a team player when it comes to all the middle-of-the-night wakings. Even though he has to get up and go to work the next day, he routinely volunteers to get up and feed her when she needs it. Spoiled, yes. Yes I am. But I love him for it.


1. Goodnight Kisses, right before sweet baby goes to bed. Every night he tells her how much he loves her and gives her lots of kisses. Melts my heart every.single.time. 

Happy Father's Day honey!! We love you and appreciate you more than you'll ever know!

4 months old, and a shmorgasboard of fun

What a fun month this has been! She's really starting to become aware of herself and her surroundings, and it's been a joy to watch her interact with the world. 


She loves her weekly trips to the zoo with Daddy, and her favorite attraction is the fish in the aquarium (I guess because they're brightly colored and move slowly.) We discovered a channel on tv that only plays nature scenes, so Daddy recorded the tropical fish show for her. It's like having our own aquarium at home! I don't normally let her watch tv, but I'll make an exception for this. She loves it! She sits in her bumbo chair, absolutely mesmerized, cooing and kicking her feet. So cute.

one day when she's older we'll have to take her
snorkeling or scuba diving! 

She has also discovered her feet, and it's now her mission in life to remove every pair of socks placed upon them. (See the blurry feet in motion in her monthly photo?) She's also figured out that she can DO things with her feet, so kicking at the mosquito net on her stroller is also great fun.

must...get...socks...off...

Her mouth is her other favorite feature. She's blowing rasberries, playing with her tongue, smacking, and 'talking' quite a bit. She laughs all the time too, and sometimes I have no idea what she's laughing at! Something just cracks her up and she starts giggling. Apparently I'm pretty funny! (Sorry the videos wouldn't upload...click on the links to view them on youtube.)

tongue tied!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRwYSxRnCaU

She loves storytime, and we read several books each day. Sometimes Winnie joins us, if the story involves interesting sound effects.  She even likes to chime in and read along with me sometimes.

attentive crowd at storytime

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWe7rA_8tHM

She's starting to enjoy her toys now. She grasps things and moves them around and tries very hard to shove everything in her mouth. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYxmhsEu5ew

Her head control is much better and she's happy to sit in her bumbo chair and just watch whatever we're doing. This weekend we're going to put her exersaucer together and see how she likes it. As much as she loves pushing off with her feet and legs, I think she'll get a kick out of it.

big girl sitting in her bumbo chair

She of course still loooooves bathtime, which I think will quickly translate into a love of swimming. We took another dip in the pool at Kristen and Justin's last weekend, and although she wasn't too keen at first (probably my fault for waking her up from her nap to come join us in the pool), she decided it was ok after a while. Her cousin Riley is taking swim lessons and becoming quite a little fish. Can't wait till next summer when Caroline will be swimming too!

Not so sure about taking the plunge...

decided it's pretty fun!

Happy 4 month birthday sweet Caroline!

One year ago

One year ago today our lives changed forever. Only 366 short days ago, we were living the carefree DINK lifestyle. (That's Dual Income No Kids.) Lengthy vacations, after-work happy hours, quick weekend getaways, and -gasp- even 15 minute showers were the norm. And then on June 4, I found out I was pregnant. What an amazing day that I will remember forever.

I found out in the morning and didn't tell Bill until after work, so I had all day to sit in a daze at my desk and let the news that we would be parents sink in. I stopped at the drugstore on the way home and bought a father's day card for Bill, his very first. When he got home I poured him a glass of wine (gotta get him all relaxed for this bombshell I'm about to drop) and asked a few casual questions, 'how was your day', etc. while my heart was racing and about to burst with the big news. I told him I had a surprise for him and gave him the card. Inside I had signed it with "I can't wait to meet you Daddy! Love, your baby (arriving February 2012)." I waited on pins and needles until he got to the good part. 

He exclaimed "You're pregnant?!" 

I said yes.

And then he uttered those 2 little words every woman dreams of hearing upon announcing that she is carrying new life inside her. 

"Holy S*%*!"

To say he looked like a deer in headlights is an understatement. I think he spent the next 10 minutes breathing into a brown paper bag. But then, a little while later after the blood returned to his face, the joy and excitement took over. We walked around with this huge enormous secret for several weeks, savoring the news all to ourselves like co-conspirators. Until we were about to bust and just had to tell our families and friends. 

And here we are, one year later, with a bubbly bouncy little girl who lights up our life every day with her big grin and silly antics. It's interesting to me that a lot of the initial fears and worries I had about parenthood have not come to pass. And things that never even crossed my mind, have. So I guess in the end it all balances out. Unbelievably challenging, yet unimaginably rewarding. We wouldn't trade it for the world. Love our sweet Petunia!