Wednesday, January 28, 2009

I just realized I'm starving.

Grace laughed yesterday (and not in her sleep). This is so corny, but no other sound has ever made me so happy in my life. It was even better than the first time she really smiled at me. I whinge all the time about being a mom, but I truly love it.

She did it twice, and I haven't been able to get her to do it again. Stubborn child.


She has some mild flat-head going on the right side of her skull. I'm not sure how it happened. When she was first born, she spent a little too much time in the bouncy seat, I think. I was a little fuzzy from the c-section and painkillers and pain, and it was very hard to hold her a lot between the fatigue, baby blues and stabbing midsection pain.

Since then, though, I've been careful not to lay her down all the time. And when she does lie down, I've tried to position her in ways that will keep her from always resting on one side of her head. So. I don't know. This is a little distressing to me. It sounds stupid, but my biggest fear as a parent (for the baby phase, at least) was that I would have a flat-head baby. And it came true. Awesome!

Tummy time continues to be a major trial. Even if I just do it for five minutes before each feeding, she still manages to lose half her lunch all over the place. If she weren't growing like a weed, I'd think she wasn't digesting any food. So I lay her down, and she'll hold her head up for .006 seconds and then flop around like a fish on a pier. I KNOW she's strong enough to do better; I've seen her do it many a time. She doesn't seem real inclined to do any hard work. Hmmmm. Sound like someone else we know?

I plan to bring all this up with the pediatrician on Friday, who will hopefully not make a note in her chart about me being a horrible, bad, awful mother who should never be allowed to reproduce again. I'm pretty sure she was a little alarmed when James told her Grace was sleeping eight hours a night at two months, despite her being obviously fat and happy (Grace, not the pediatrician).

Good news: She has found the thumb. Before, she was sucking on her fingers from time to time, but not reliably enough to soothe herself. This meant a lot of carrying her around in the sling and holding the pacifier in her face, which meant doing everything one-handed. This makes housekeeping and cooking a real challenge. Anyway, as I've mentioned before, this new development can be pretty hilarious at times. She has thumbs almost as long as my pinkies, so gags herself, get scared, shoves thumb further down her throat, and gags some more. Don't worry! I rescue her. But it's still hilarious.

The bad news that goes with the good news: She drools all over her hand and then smears it on her face. So I, in turn, have to smear lanolin all over her face regularly, or her cheeks get so chapped I could sand my furniture with them. They're a nice rosy red color, though!


She's back to sleeping really well again. Finally. Two days in a row now, she's stayed asleep until 8:30. It's wonderful. I feel like I'm capable of being a wife and mom again. Sleep deprivation doesn't seem all that bad while I'm going through it, but once I'm out the other side, I look back and think, "Wow. How did I survive?"

She no longer needs the swaddle at night, either. This is wonderful. It sucks a lot to swaddle a grouchy, tired, strong and thrashing baby at the end of the day. Like if you tried to braid a hyperactive octopus's tentacles.


Child is trying to inhale her thumb again. I must go.

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