One thing I forgot to ask in the prenatal class was if the babies come out with large talons… I am not sure if they would have told me the truth and said yes, they would have probably lied and said no. It’s fitting that this crucial bit of information was left out like so many other “gems” that may affect one’s decision to procreate. So I am here to tell you that yes, the baby comes with large talons, maybe not right away, but they grow in and they are sharp. Once the nails start growing you realize that you are going to have to cut them. I am not sure there was anything about infant care that I was so terrified about. You are holding this tiny baby hand with it’s 5 paper thin, nearly microscopic nails and you are meant to clip them with razor sharp cutters (okay maybe the cutters are not razor sharp but they might as well be for how scary it is). I made Brandon do it the first few times. The first time he cut her nails she bled, and since fingertips bleed like gutted pigs, the blood kept pouring… reminding us that we had failed on this one. Fortunately she was so tiny and tired that she barely noticed (thank God!). The next few rounds of cutting were uneventful, I think it was once he got confident that he accidentally cut her again, this time she was awake, alert and livid. She cried and bled for what seemed like hours but was probably only 5 minutes. I volunteered to take over after that. So now nail cutting is my job and I do it while she is eating at night (her most naturally sedate time). It’s a good thing that by this point in time I have gone pro nail cutter, because my daughter’s nails grow so fast, I could cut them twice a week if I really wanted to be picky about it, come to think of it the time may have come to get picky.
Baby and Daddy!
Lately each breastfeeding session results in my boobs clawed up, (like I said, those little f***ers are SHARP! Everly has a need for a lot of tactile stimulation right now, and by tactile stimulation I mean clawing, scratching, pinching, twisting and pulling; all of the above are currently offenses committed by her on my sensitive boob skin and nipples. Right now both my right and left breasts look like google maps- little scratches like little streets and scabs that might represent a school or shopping mall. Yes we have started the discipline thing and I take her off the boob and hold her hand and say NO! I have even taken it one step further and I hold her hand and run my finger along the top of it and say ‘gentle’ so that she knows what a gentle touch feels like. But all it takes is one second and she is really good at getting that one second in! I was very near to weaning her from the breast I was so fed up with it, instead she now wears mittens or gets swaddled, which you can guess she really appreciates. How funny does that look, my little baby tucking in for a meal with pink woolen mittens on her hands. The good that has come out of this is that the swaddle really helps her to relax before sleep, thank you breasts for your sacrifice… should have known that the brain in it’s quest for sleep would be willing to sacrifice other body parts.
Yes, the topic of sleep, always an interesting one in our household. How I wish I could go back to the days where she slept with us in our bed without a peep for solid 8 and 9 hour stretches, only we would all have enough room. In this fantasy my ass wouldn’t be hanging off the side of the bed while B’s leg hangs off the other side, while Everly ‘queen of the bed’ spreads out like a snow angel in the middle, life would be good. But no, life didn’t continue on like it does in dreams and we had to put her in her crib. If you have been reading this blog you know the ordeal that has been for our ‘spirited’ baby. Well it seems that the Baby Whisperer (who told us our child is spirited) has helped this family. I say seems because so far things are going pretty good. She is only waking to feed once in a 12 hour stretch (I am totally willing to live with this) and she is sleeping in her own bed. When she goes down for sleep times it can sometimes be a bit of an ordeal and may take up to 30 minutes, but I feel okay with that because the Baby Whisperer said her worst case had her standing next to the crib for nearly 2 hours. I feel better knowing someone had it worse than us, isn’t that mean, yes it’s mean, but it doesn’t change the fact that I still feel better about it, lol!
Pickle likes her crib!
Our Little Pickle 