It's Okay, I Fixed It

My daughter hates me.

Oh, if you ask mom she'll tell you I'm being ridiculous but honestly I think it's the only explanation for what's been happening lately.

I'll hold Lois and she'll look at me and out of nowhere start crying. Her diaper's fine, nothing in particular seems to be causing her stress, but looking at daddy? Daddy's horrible and scary looking and I must cry now.

Doing scientific testing I took Lois and pointed her at mommy while crying. Within less than three seconds the crying was gone, replaced by a smile. Back at daddy? Tears and screaming. Back at mommy: the world is great. Back at daddy: I hate everything in this big scary world. Back at mommy: Yay mommy!

So then when Mommy was out of the room later Lois and I had a little talk and I think I fixed it. We seem to be on more even footing and she barely cries at the sight of me anymore.

The pony should arrive in a week or two.

Lois Gift List

I've been asked to put up a gift list for Lois for family and friends to look through. Any other baby-appropriate toys or warm clothing in the 6 to 9 month range (or other clothing in a higher range) are definitely accepted and appreciated!

• Graco Blossom 4-in-1 Seating System, Vance 
• Evenflo ExerSaucer Triple Fun - Jungle 
• Tiny Love Super Deluxe Lights and Music Gymini Activity Gym 
• Baby Einstein Bendy Ball 
• Manhattan Toy Winkel

How To Know....

Laura came to me this morning and said that she knows for a fact that we're better parents.

"How?" I asked, very curious.

"The Baby 411 book that we used to refer to frantically every day to see what we needed to do next has just sat there, unused, for a few weeks."

She's right! We're great parents!

Either that or completely neglectful. I still haven't decided.

In other news, here's a picture of our baby's newest manifested ability:

Spider Baby!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Rule 1: Do not cook the baby.

Exception: Thanksgiving?

She doesn't seem to mind. Nom?

Happy Thanksgiving!

So This Exists...

Want your baby to help with the housework? All you have to do is dress the baby up in this mop suit, put them on the floor, and let them mop up all the germs and dirt so that they can chew on it for a while!

This lead me to Googling other weird baby outfits. Seems like lobster-babies are quite popular. Vaguely along those lines, please enjoy "Nom Nom Nom Nom Babies."

Wherein I Don't Want My Baby To Die

Lois is starting to do things like interact with the world around her, reaching out toward things nearby that she finds interesting.  She's also trying to sit herself up when we lay her down, doing this V-shaped move that I think in yoga is called a "jackknife." I could be wrong.

She's even started tipping herself on her side late at night while she's sleeping, or faking being asleep.

Which, of course, is terrifying.

As you may recall from not long ago, I need to swaddle my baby to help her sleep. Now she is capable of tipping herself onto her side which means that soon she will tip herself over. With SIDS a terrifying reality in this world, the thought of her flipping onto her stomach with no way of flipping herself back and theoretically no way of moving her head if she's face-down and exhausted, we are going to immediately stop swaddling her and get her used to sleeping with her arms free.

We may swaddle her legs so she's not kicking herself awake but her arms will be free. I imagine the evening will go like this:

1. Lay her down to sleep after a feeding. She will probably suck on one of her hands for a while and doze off.
2. Flail as she falls asleep (whether this is because of the Moro reflex or something else I don't know) and rip her own hand out of her mouth.
3. Wake up.
4. Cry because someone took away her soothing sucking hand.
5. Pick up baby and soothe.
6. Repeat. All. Night. Long.

So if I seem a little tired over the next few days it's because I am. If mom seems a little tired? It's because she is. We both expect this to take a while and be rough on both of us but we're both concerned for her and want to do everything we can to make sure she's healthy.

Even if it turns us into zombies.

Sometimes Things Get A Little Strange....

Dads and moms, sometimes things get weird as a parent and I'm here to let you know that that's okay.

Sometimes the weirdness is your reaction to something like being happy about poop, sometimes it's just the things you say and how weird they would sound to an outsider like my post Parenting or Porn, and sometimes it's a third nipple.

Poop! Poop everywhere!

1. Let's start at TMI and just get worse from there: Yesterday I said "Yay! You pooped!" and was genuinely happy. Our little girl hadn't pooped for several days and we were on the verge of calling a doctor. Then she almost literally exploded with poop. And we were happy about it. Happy. About poop. Poop! (Especially me, who wasn't here at the time and didn't have to clean it up.)
2. Along the lines of "things you say that are weird" I found myself, today, saying "We don't have enough nipples in this household!" Weird enough but then I added "Which, considering between the 3 of us there are seven, is saying a lot!" Now in the first half of that I was talking about bottle nipples and the second half I was talking about....
3. Apparently if you ask your baby's doctor "why does it look like my baby has an extra nipple" they will calmly reply "because your baby has an extra nipple." So, yeah. That happened. Which, you'd think that would be the weirdest thing, right? You'd be wrong.
1. So, lesson to be learned: Babies are weird in more ways than you'll ever plan for as a parent. You'll say strange things, see strange things, and be in strange places before you know it.
4. A while back I said that there was something I was not allowed to blog about. I asked Laura about it and she said "No. Absolutely not." And while I didn't necessarily agree with her choice I understood it; the thing that was going on was weird and I could see her feeling weird about sharing it. Then the thing stopped happening and I got permission to blog about it.
   
   Our baby lactated and had little tiny baby boobies. It was very, very strange and kinda discomforting. It went away and we were all happy. Apparently it has to do with hormones from mom being transferred in the breast milk and is, according to doctors and Wikipedia, "perfectly normal." DEFINE "NORMAL." I'm pretty sure "milk coming from the baby's nipples" is NOT in that definition.
   
   It's even called "Witch's Milk." No, seriously. Look it up (or don't) and see that I'm not lying! And they call that "normal." NORMAL. Blows. My. Mind.
   
   But it's done now. It's over with. No more milk, no more baby boobs, and even the third nipple is fading into nothingness. I'm allowed to share the story because now it's just "something that happened a while back and no big deal." When it was happening though? No.
   
   Good luck!

And those of you who have already gone through this, I ask you: What is the weirdest thing that ever happened with your baby? Maybe it was something you said, something you did, something the baby did? What else should I be on the lookout for?


EDIT: I posted this and within 20 minutes Laura sent me the following via Facebook:
Laura: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernumerary_nipple
Laura: This implies that it is entirely possible to have a range of extra nipples. All on the same body
Laura: a la the rows of nipples found on other mammals
Laura: Like cats
Laura: OUR BABY IS A CAT!

Like I said...things get weird.