Spit-up in my Git-up

January 1, 2010 at 12:40 am (Breastfeeding, Gas, Max)

Recently, Max has had a problem with gas and spitting up. Not a serious problem, but sometimes burps awaken him from perfectly good naps and he seems to insist on waiting to spit up until we have decided he is not going to spit up and have put away the burp cloth, thereby leaving our clothes unprotected.

Usually, burping him on the shoulder was the most effective way to go. The pressure of a chest against his stomach seemed to force the burp out. However, now he has discovered his ability to hold his head up! And move it! And use both hands to yank different sections of mom’s hair as if they were reins with his drooly, spit-up covered hands! (I am probably going to have to give in and cut off my hair. I spend way too much time removing his little hands from my hair everyday and it hurts too much when he pulls it. I know it’s time for a change when I am shying away from my baby putting his arms around my neck due to fear of pain inflicted by his chubby, dimpled, vise-like hands.)

He has discovered he can turn his head to the side and lean back down towards my breast while I am attempting to burp him. I have become resigned to the fact that, at some point, he is going to puke on my face while planting his drooly, open mouth on my cheek during burping sessions. It did not occur to me until just before it happened that he would puke on my breasts, his food source. But he did. Right down the cleavage. Dead center. And I calmly wiped it up with a burp cloth and went on with my day.

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Proud legacy

November 10, 2009 at 1:19 am (Babies, Etiquette, Gas, television)

Today, my three and a half month old son laughed when he passed gas and almost rolled over for the first time while trying to get a better view of the TV. Oh, yes, he is definitely my son.

Later tonight, he did roll over for the first time (front to back), but luckily, the television was not involved.

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Sort of like a fuzzy navel …

October 12, 2009 at 8:43 pm (Babies, Etiquette, Family, Motherhood)

I was changing my son’s diaper today when I noticed he had some fuzz on his body. On the tip of his penis, to be exact. Now, this raises an interesting issue for me as a mother or maybe it’s for all of us as a society. I’m not sure. Maybe we have all gotten over-sensitive if a mother cannot handle (I wish I could think of a better word.) matters pertaining to her son’s penis without feeling awkward. He’s only two months old. It’s tiny. (No offense, kid.) However, it took about ten tries for me to get that fuzz off of his penis. I felt so awkward that I kept trying to remove the fuzz without actually touching his genitalia, which worked about as well as it sounds like it would. (The fuzz removal, not his genitals. I have no idea how well they function, except that he seems to have no trouble peeing, preferably with his diaper off. ) I even called my husband right before I managed to finally, successfully, remove it.

Max (That is my son’s name. I am in the process of rendering this blog un-anonymous, but haven’t had time to update my “About” page.) was seemingly oblivious to all of this. However, I veered between feelings of awkwardness over having to touch him when not changing his diaper or bathing him (even for fuzz removal purposes) and fears that I would accidentally hurt him. During one of my desperate, spastic attempts to remove the fuzz, I felt like I accidentally tugged too sharply on his poor little penis. I decided he would have let me know if I had, though. As for any awkwardness, I’ve discussed this with other parents and it seems to be something we all feel. Especially with a child of the opposite sex. Just comes with the territory. I wonder, though, if it ever stops being awkward? Or becomes less awkward?

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Free to breast-feed

September 19, 2009 at 2:44 pm (Babies, Breastfeeding, Etiquette, Life, Motherhood, Parenting, Uncategorized)

My son and I finally made it to our first postnatal yoga class today. I didn’t actually end up doing much yoga because my son, like most almost-two-month-olds, needs to eat every three hours. Also, he takes about 40 minutes to  nurse. I admit, this has kept me from attending the class before, because I didn’t want to spend most of it nursing instead of doing yoga. However, the writing is on the wall. I’m not going to be able to do anything unless I am willing to feed him during some part of it. So I went, but I took a bottle of breast milk with me, since he usually bottle-feeds quicker than he nurses.

My son has taken a bottle from me several times and he usually gets at least one a day from my husband, so that I can have a break. However, he wouldn’t take it today. So, since several other women were nursing their babies, I decided to go ahead and nurse him.

At first, I felt self-conscious nursing without a cover in public. However, I soon became completely comfortable with it. In fact, I felt liberated. Before I had a child, I was fine with women breast-feeding in public, although I assumed it would be best for them to cover themselves up, to avoid catching flack from people. I thought it must be easy to just toss a cover over yourself and the baby. I was wrong. I have a nursing cover. It is very difficult to get the child in and out of the cover without exposing yourself somehow anyway. You either have to flash people or place the child under there and then fumble with your clothes, blind and one-handed. Also, it is sweltering under there (I can only imagine what it feels like for my son.) and trying to get him latched back on  five thousand times while I can’t see him makes me want to pull my hair out.

Everyone says “breast is best.” They want all of the moms to breast-feed because it is better for the babies, but most people would prefer you stay trapped in the house for three months doing it. I’m sorry, but that is just not realistic. If people are going to get judgmental about a mom not breast-feeding, then they shouldn’t be judgmental about a mom doing it in public. A mom still has to have a life while breast-feeding, especially if she has other kids and/or a job. Plus, it’s better for both mom and baby if they aren’t trapped in the house 24/7. For the first time today, I didn’t feel limited by breast-feeding. I didn’t feel trapped. I actually felt like I was breast-feeding and living at the same time. I didn’t feel like I had to drop everything to feed my child. I didn’t have to stop my life. I was sharing my life with him.

Honestly, I think most moms probably aren’t self-conscious about nursing without a cover. At least, like me, they would find out they weren’t once they tried it. I think it is other people’s attitudes that make a mom self-conscious, rather than her own feelings. It’s not what the mom or baby is doing, but other people’s thoughts about breasts that are the problem. The fact is, I had to look really closely at the moms in class today to tell if they were nursing, even without covers. They were very discreet about it. They weren’t flashing their breasts around or letting them hang out when a child wasn’t latched to them. The fact is, our society is prudish and many think of breasts purely as sexual objects. Come on, people. It’s breast-feeding, not flashing your boobs to get Mardi Gras beads. And yet, some of the same people who probably pay money for those Girls Gone Wild DVDs, give nursing mothers dirty looks in public.

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Adventures in postpartum birth control

September 3, 2009 at 4:14 am (Babies, Birth control, Etiquette, Yoga)

A lot of people (namely men) probably don’t know this, but vaginas can belch. I don’t know of a better word to describe it. It’s different from passing gas, because you aren’t. I can personally attest to the fact that inversions in yoga can be very risky for precisely this reason. I once swept up in to a headstand and, somehow, my lady parts took a deep breath. I literally felt the air sweep in there prompting an inward “uh-oh.” Sure enough, what goes up, must come down, meaning, not only my legs, but the air. Unfortunately, there were only three people (including me) besides the teacher in that yoga class, so I couldn’t look innocent and pass it off on someone else.They were all good enough to ignore it, but they knew. Oh, they knew.

So, why have I subjected you to a long discussion of vaginal belching? (Which my husband just reminded me has another name, but I like mine better.) Well, I decided to try Nuva Ring rather than going back on the Pill. I started it yesterday and I swear, for like, an hour afterward, my body was trying to expel that thing. It didn’t succeed, but it made a noise remarkably similar to the yoga class incident at times. It finally stopped, but between my Nuva Ring and my son’s loud, uncontrollable gas, our living room was very noisy for awhile.

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Mommy brain, part 2

August 20, 2009 at 10:29 pm (Babies, Coffee, Etiquette, Family, Life, Sleep)

I was gazing at my son’s perfect face today and suddenly I panicked. “He’s already almost a month old and we haven’t brushed his teeth!”, I thought in a panic. “We brush the cats’ teeth and even apply sealant to Earl Grey’s religiously once a week, but we have neglected our child’s dental hygiene!!” Then, reason and logic briefly held sway in my sleep-deprived brain. Newborns don’t have teeth. Riiiiggghht.

It’s a very cruel joke of Mother Nature’s that, at the time when we have a vulnerable new life to protect, we are so out of our minds with lack of sleep that we can’t walk straight or form a coherent thought. Last night, I forgot the first lines to two of my favorite Dixie Chicks songs I was attempting to sing to my son before he went to sleep. This morning, I banged my toes in to the wall on my way out of the kitchen yet again and blasphemed. Thank God the kid was across the room. Later on, I accidentally dropped a spoon on the coffee table and woke him up. I promptly followed that stunning feat by uttering the Queen Mother of Dirty Words. I said it under my breath, but he was much closer this time. (Did I forget to mention that being wakened every three hours or less to feed someone causes lack of patience and frustration as well as stupidity?) Not batting a thousand as a mom today. Maybe it is the lack of Starbucks. They really need to start delivering.

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Why?

July 20, 2009 at 5:13 am (Babies, Drivers, Etiquette, Life, Movies, Pregnancy, Smoking, weather)

Why won’t my son come out? Doesn’t he want to be squeezed and pushed in to a glaringly bright, stiflingly hot new world full of drivers on cell phones and oblivious smokers who think being outside negates the effects of their secondhand smoke? (Yeah, I’m talking about you ladies outside the Alamo Village last Friday night, who didn’t seem to realize that the ceiling fans were wafting your cigarette smoke directly towards my unborn child’s pristine lungs.)

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Top 10 Most Annoying Things Said to Expectant Parents

July 11, 2009 at 4:53 am (Babies, Cats, Etiquette, Life, Pregnancy, Relationships, Sleep)

In no particular order:

1. It will change your life forever. (If they are too stupid to know this, they shouldn’t be having a baby.)

2. Sleep when the baby sleeps. (Every baby book says this. You need to think up better material if this is your best advice.)

3. Anything prefaced with “It was good enough in my day…” (Moms get VERY huffy about the changes in child-rearing since they raised their own children. They seem to take them as a personal insult.)

4. “You’re going to get the drugs, right?” (Followed by a polite “Oh” when you tell them you are, in fact, crazy enough to want to try natural childbirth.)

5. Retelling a friend’s horrific birth story to a first-time mother. (Why did the checker at HEB, a complete stranger by the way, think I wanted to know about her friend’s emergency C-section?)

6. “You’re not a Mommy yet!” (In response to the “Mommy and Me” shirt I wore at my baby shower. My uncle should try saying that to me after he lugs a baby around inside him for six months.)

7. “Say good-bye to a good night’s sleep.” (Oh, REALLY? Babies don’t sleep much? They wake up at night?? Why did no one tell me this???)

8. “Are you going to lock her up till she’s 30?” (Sexist humor never gets old.)

9. “I wonder if you’ll still be as crazy about your cats after the baby comes.” (Oh, yes, that’s an excellent trait for a parent. Ceasing to care about living creatures who depend on you after you get a new, more demanding one.)

10. “I know this isn’t what you registered for, but this worked so much better for me.” (Why don’t you just come right out and say that you think my carefully researched parenting decisions are stupid?)

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Some friendly yoga advice

July 10, 2009 at 4:17 am (Etiquette, Yoga)

If there are people in the back of the room next to the props, ask if a prop is theirs before taking it for yourself! Hello! It was RIGHT NEXT to my mat!!And it was the last one!!! In the whole studio apparently!!!!

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