Cute Face

I've been getting so many smiles the last few days! I love it! <3

That is all.

Blarg. Mommying Ain't Eezay.

I've hit a total wall. All I do all day is try to keep/stop Ezri from crying. She's so fussy, I feel like a comfort zombie. None of my needs/desires matter, I barely get to eat or use the bathroom, let alone do anything that I enjoy. I love my daughter, but being on Cry Prevention Duty is not enjoyable.

It'll pass, I keep telling myself. Soon she'll start smiling more regularly, laughing even. She'll be able to play with toys, amuse herself for more than 90 seconds at a time. It'll happen.

In the mean time, I'm losing my shit.

Parents I know (or run into in the mall and decide I need advice) keep telling me how fondly they look back on this period, and I will too. That is of little comfort when I haven't left the house in two days because Ezri won't calm down long enough to walk to the grocery store a block from our house without all passers by staring at me like I'm a terrible mother because my child is crying.

Contrary to my ideal, I've become a Boob Stuffer. After bouncing her in circles around my apartment for more than a half hour, I don't care if she ate 45 minutes ago or not: I stuff my boob in her mouth because I know it'll calm her. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the best piece of parenting advice I ever got was that your ideas about what kind of parent you want to be go out the window once the kid arrives and you become a pragmatist.

I just want this stage to be over with. It's exhausting and frustrating. There are beautiful moments too, but they're hard to recall when all I want to do is put her down long enough to shower and maybe, for a few minutes, feel like my own person, a separate entity.

Cranky Poopy Baby

I haz a cranky baby.

She just hasn't been the same since her shots on Thursday. She's typically kind of a whiny kid to begin with (most of my days are spent finding ways to keep/stop her from crying), but it's been ten fold the last few days. The first couple she was kind of sluggish and tired, had a bit of a fever that night and the next day (nothing a little baby Tylenol couldn't handle). But the last couple days? Sheesh. Cry City.

I don't want to be that mom who stuffs her kid's face with meds when she's cranky, but I have read that the Tylenol can help the mood swings, even if there's no fever. I mean, she's essentially half-sick right now, her little body doing its all to absorb the vaccinations. It's hard to find reliable information online about what to do in this kind of situation, but a lot of mom-forums I came across say crankiness for up to a week is normal.

A week!

Oh and she finally pooped today. This kid was saving it up. For eight days. Imagine eight days worth of poo, all at once. It was horrific. You'd need space-age diapers to contain that much (which I do not have, so you can see my problem). Gross.

But I still love her!! <3

Three Little Shots

Ezri got her first round of vaccinations today. Poor girl was not impressed. I had read that nursing while they're giving the shots helps, and the doctor agreed. I can't say it made any difference, since I have nothing to compare it to, but she seemed to calm down relatively quickly. It's been about 6 hours, and no excess fussiness, no fever, she seems to have taken them well.

Recently on Facebook a conversation was started about whether or not to vaccinate children. I'm still surprised at how many people are against vaccinations. I'm not a "drink the koolaid" kind of person, I've done my research. I know that they study that claimed a link between vaccinations and autism, after extensive peer-review, wasn't only found to be questionable, but elements were flat out made up. Yet, somehow, since this debate has been opened, people can't seem to reevaluate this new evidence. Thank-you, Jenny McCarthy.

Ezri's paediatrician commented with sincerity that vaccinations have changed his job, for the better. He reveled at not having to treat meningitis anymore, and noted that the only children to contract it in BC are unimmunized. Why don't we see polio anymore? Because of vaccinations.

There's more evidence coming out about the benefits of spacing immunizations out differently, which I admit I'm not entirely read up on. But that's the neat thing about science: constant reevaluation, revision, improvements, and research.

I know everyone has an opinion on this, but at the end of the day, not all opinions are created equal. Some are based on a rational understanding of scientific evidence with a healthy dose of perspective and question-asking, and some are based on fear of modern medicine and a misunderstanding of biological processes. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's just the truth.

Peering In a Tiny Window

Well, it's been more than a month since my last post. Ezri kind of "woke up" from her newborn slumber and became very active and needy. She requires constant holding and stimulation, I barely get a moment without her in my arms unless Josh is there with me. Ironically, I started a blog post a few weeks ago about how she sucks up all my time, but never finished it because a paragraph into it, she woke up and required my attention.

Since this "awakening" she's lost her ability to sleep in her bassinet. It takes her forever to fall asleep enough to put her down without waking up as soon as her back makes contact with the mattress. During the days, if I can successfully put her down, she wakes up within minutes. During the nights, I simply can't spare my own sleep it takes to assure she's deep enough under to put down. Consequently, she's been sleeping in bed with us most of the time.

I promised myself I couldn't co-sleep, but as a parent, you kind of end up doing what works. Some advice I got from a fellow parent while I was pregnant: Before kids, you can afford to be self-righteous with your ideas about parenting, judging other parents. Relish in it, because it's the last time you'll know everything. After kids, you lose that ego and find yourself doing things you never would have guessed, just because they work.

One of my favorite parts of having Ezri in bed with us is that first moment, when she's still wide awake after feeding, I crawl into bed, placing her next to me on her side. We stare at one another, face to face in the dim blue glow of the night light, and I see a person.

A real little person.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and would play with a particular doll house that my grandparents had. It felt more real to me than any other set I'd seen, and when I peered into the window at all the tiny furniture arranged just so, it felt like I was looking into a house. A real little house. It felt so magical, so wondrous, imagining the tiny people that lived in this tiny house inside of our giant house. When I look at her in those moments, I feel the same wonder.

As exhausting and time consuming as she is, it's glorious.

The One About Poop

When you're totally responsible for the survival of another, helpless, fragile creature who is unable to take advantage of the joys of opposable thumbs or verbal communication, you become necessarily and intimately acquainted with their ins and outs. Dog owners know what I'm talking about, although luckily my daughter doesn't shit on the lawn and make me pick it up. You're liable for everything that goes in and everything that comes out, and you begin to pay close attention to said things.

With our own bodies, we know how we're feeling because, well, we feel it, and we can communicate that do other people via our words. Babies have no such ability, so, we, as parents, have to use other clues to sleuth our way to finding out how our children are feeling. This means watching their poop.

We are parents. We are Poop Sleuths.

Ezri's most famous move is something I like to call Exploding Poops. She waits until her diaper is off and I'm all done wiping her and then shoots her watery smelly crap all over the place. It's horrible. It gets so much air, it has an arc to it. An arc of poop. Just the other day, she shot it almost two feet across the living room floor. I'm fairly certain I should make some kind of Olympic event out of it. We'd kick ass.

But perhaps a parent most notices their kid's poop when something is wrong, like when there's none or there's too damned much. Then poop sleuthing actually becomes an emotional experience. When Ezri was first born, she didn't poo for a few days, and it was of some concern. That first dirty diaper after a few days of just wet ones was a cause for celebration!

"She pooped! Huzzah!"

People without kids will never really understand our obsession with the bodily functions of our children. And just FYI, my childless friends: When we talk about it, it's not that we're trying to be gross or insensitive. It's just our life now.

On Boobs

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: Breast feeding does not come natually. It's a natural thing, sure, and an incredible wonderful healthy fabulous thing. But it's not automatic and it sure isn't easy.

Ezri and I got off to a great start. As per my wishes, I got to breast feed virtually right away. Some beautiful skin-to-skin time immediately post-birth, then after being weighed and measured, we got down to business. It was awesome. Feeding my child with my own body is an incredible feeling, I was thrilled.

Things kept going well until we got home. It was really hard to keep her awake during feedings, but I didn't think anything of it. Our public health nurse came to visit a couple days after being discharged because we were concerned about jaundice. Turns out she lost more weight than is normal (around 5% of birth weight is normal, she lost 12%), and things just kept progressing from there.

The jaundice sorted itself out (thank goodness), and for her one week checkup, we saw a paediatrician. Her weight was still not adequate, and he said we'd have to start supplementing.

Formula? Fuck.

I'm such a huge breast feeding fanatic, I'll never understand women who voluntarily don't breast feed. At all. It baffles me. So this was a huge blow, to know that my body wasn't enough for my child. Turns out, I wasn't producing enough for het yet. Add that to the fact that she's impossible to keep conscious long enough to feed, and then she developed latching issues, her health was our #1 priority. If that meant formula, then that meant formula. Doesn't mean I'm thrilled about it.

They recommended a bunch of things to use instead of a bottle, since breast feeding isn't yet well established til usually the second month and the bottle can cause further issues, since it's so much easier to get milk from than the breast. But none of them were practical. When you're already frustrated, overtired, and have your support team (husband and mother) leaving soon (going back to work and flying out, respectively), you have to think about your own sanity too. I'm good to no one if I'm broken.

So a ton of pills (to get my milk supply up) and one breast pump (ditto) later, and we have our good days and our bad days. More like good feeds and bad feeds. Her weight is up by a wonderful amount, enough that I was told we can start weening her off the formula, one feeding at a time (see how she is on the breast and judge from there).

It is definitely not an exact science, but according to multiple nurses and lactation experts I've seen over the last two weeks, I'm doing everything right. It just takes time. It's hard to remember that when it's 2am and all you want is to feed and sleep, but the little one won't latch because she keeps getting her limbs in the way, but you don't have any free hands to hold them back, and then once she does get on, she immediately falls asleep, and then when she looses the latch and wakes up, she panics and starts freaking out, screaming too much to be able to latch again.

Welcome to my life.

I just keep reminding myself "It will get easier."