Reposted from Monday, June 2nd, 2008

The bean started to get really fussy this afternoon. Behold, the saga of our evening:

Try to put laundry away – baby wails.

Pick her up.

Bounce her.

Sing to her.

Think: Holy crap, when was the last we changed her diaper?

Change her diaper.

Bounce her again.

Sing to her again.

Put her in bouncy chair.

Feed her.

Burp her.

Put her in the comfy sling she fell asleep in yesterday

Success! For not very long.

Show her pictures that transfixed her yesterday.

Put those down after she swats you in the face.

Put her in stroller.

Walk around the block.

Return home. She’s quieting down…

Take her upstairs to see what’s going on there.

Note she may be finally sleeping – try to put her down.

Regret trying to put her down. Pick her up again.

Walk back downstairs.

Turn on Hawaiian music.

Bingo.

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

Armed with a notebook full of questions, I brought the bean to her one-month visit to the pediatrician on Thursday.

I love this pediatrician. She’s got crazy curly gray hair, and wears a stethescope around her neck adorned with a gaggle of stuffed bears. She is positively encyclopedic in her knowledge of pediatrics, and believes that no question is too stupid. I have already called her 3 times in 6 weeks – each time, she calls me back right away – and this despite the fact that she is the most sought-after ped in the East Bay. (She was also an art major in college, which tells me she’s got a lot more soul than your standard-issue by-the-numbers doc.)

Once we get the insurance info sorted, an assistant named Mary comes in and takes her vitals – the bean has grown an inch and a half and has put on two and a half pounds. (C notes that she now has a “regional manager” chin.)

Mary feels her back and scrunchs her legs to determine if her spine and hips are growing correctly (they are).

Dr P comes in and tells me that, yes, 5-6 weeks is a period of accelerated development, which explains the increase in fussiness. The mylan sheaths are forming around the neurons in her brain, her vision is crisping up, and she is learning how to track voices with her eyes. Her neck is still insanely vulnerable, as is her immune system. The gunk in her eye is normal – as her tear ducts get online – even though her left eye is clouded with filmy goop. All of these developments in her perception creates stressful and unpleasant conditions for a brand new bean. The remedy? Soothe her, play with her, give her neato stuff to look at.

After a gazillion hours of research and talking to myriad parents, doctors and alternative health practitioners, we opted to start vaccinating this week, too. (NB: This is a long and very charged topic so all I’ll say here is that I am more comfortable with the odds of side-effects than I am with the odds of contracting one of these diseases.)

Note to self: Be sure to get a lot of sleep the night before you vaccinate her again – she’ll be up all night fussing afterwards.

Speaking of sleep deprivation, C and I were driving somewhere the other day – he was driving – and I saw a parked truck start rolling backwards. I did a double take, thinking the truck was going to smack into the car behind it, and realized I had hallucinated the whole thing. The truck wasn’t rolling backwards. My brain was. Sleep deprivation has finally gotten to the point of hallucinations. So whee! No driving when I’m this tired, but at least there’s something fun about all this lack of sleep.

Grr. This is now the second time that I’ve gotten mastitis. Mastitis is an inflammation of the breast tissue. It affects the fatty tissues, so there is no danger to the baby or your milk. It just hurts a lot and can lead to infection, which REALLY sucks.

Symptoms of mastitis

• Breast soreness
• Redness in the skin
• Hard lumps in your breast
• A fever
• Flu-like symptoms, feeling like total crap

Treatment -

1. Give yourself breast massages to loosen any clogged milk ducts (which cause the mastitis in the first place)
2. Soak affected breast in warm water and epsom salts 2x a day
3. Wear a good bra – I cannot believe the difference a good bra makes!!
4. Okay, so some people think it’s better to wear no bra at all. Do whatever you need to reduce the pain.
5. Don’t sleep on your breasts or smoosh them in any other way
6. Try this homeopathic remedy: Take a dose of phytolacca. Three hours later, take a dose of Hepar sulphuris. Three hours later, take another of phytolacca and continue alternating on three hour cycles. I’m trying this for the first time and will report back.
7. Of course if you get really sick, or you don’t feel like dealing with all this other stuff, you can go to a doc and get some antibiotics. I did that 2 weeks ago, though, so I’m trying the homeopathic way instead.

My friend S who has a 5 year old son says she got mastitis a gazillion times. So it’s not one of those infections that leaves you alone once you kick it, alas.

Okay not the most glamorous of topics, but the one thing you learn early is that motherhood is all about managing effluvia.

She’s also become much more vocal — gurgling and sputtering and grunting. She’ll lie in her bouncy seat and riff on for a half an hour. Sometimes it escalates into crying; most of the time, she ends up falling asleep. Sometimes she gurgles IN her sleep. I think we have a talkative one on our hands.

I am really sleep-deprived. I am also starting to need alone/quiet/sanity time. Are these factors related? Perhaps.  After being relatively patient for the better part of the last month, I finally hit my limit. I went to a play last night with my friend M, and it was SOO MUCH FUN to get out of the house, go see a performance and talk about it! No kids, poo, diapers — no whining about sleep-dep, or sore nipples. Yes, yes, it was FUN!! ANd I came home with such a gratitude for my little family.

So I have made a pact with C to ensure I get regular outings. Phew.

Beano has been showing a couple of smiles here and there. Big, broad, sweet smiles.  She’s also on a growth spurt, nursing upwards of 10-12 times a day. Her belly is appreciably rounder, as are her arms & legs & ears. LOL. Yep, her ears are huge, compared to what they were when she was born.  And given how often she nurses, I am seeing a lot of her ears these days.

Her head has more of a normal baby head shape, (as opposed to conehead) and her hairline is becoming more distinct.  You can see the outline of her eyebrows, which you could not see before.  And her eyes are still sort of blue-gray.

She’s gotten much better at screaming.  She’s got a style of screaming that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.  She screams until there’s not a molecule of air left in her lungs – and she’s convulsing with pain and frustration. It’s the kind of sound designed to take mama’s heart, throw it across the room and smash it into ten-thousand pieces.

I am – once again – exhausted.  Time for the late afternoon nap.

But now here I am. I have so loved bonding with her. Especially in the middle of the night when we’re nursing. We’ll settle in, listening to classical guitar, or solo piano, or sacred choral music. I rock her in my comfier-than-believable glider.

As she eats, I whisper to her how much I love her, how strong and healthy and smart and beautiful she is. And she keeps on nursing with her little mouth so assiduously sucking away, until her breathing slows and she falls into a post-nursing reverie.

I treasure these moments. I know they won’t last – and I love love love them.

To all the mothers out there – happy mother’s day.