Do The Babies Have Large Talons?

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!

You Just Never Know!

 So I have taken a few days off from blogging… mostly because life has been a bit crazy busy- what? I had a 3 photo commissions and a calendar to design over the weekend and you know what, it isn’t as easy to get through that much work anymore! I remember the days when that would be just the perfect amount of work in a weekend to keep me busy, how times change, lol. So the blogging slipped, it was the lowest on the pile, these things happen.

The past three nights have been glorious, glorious, glorious. When I type glorious it does not do justice to how it sounds in my head… in my head it is like angels are singing and you can hear trumpets (not too loud though so that they don’t wake the baby!). She has gone down with under 30 minutes of protesting and has stayed asleep until 4:30 am, after which she eats and goes back to sleep until 8:00 am. I can’t ask for much more right now to be honest. Sure that 4:30 am feeding is a small jab in the bum, but as long as I get to bed at a decent time it’s really not that bad at all to be honest. Like my friend Kim said, I only have so many nights left that she is going to want to hang out with me 😉 She is napping great as well, I am just so freaking proud of her right now. We are on day 27.

On Sunday night when Everly was having her last feeding of the day, I went to burp her and noticed a large, oddly shaped lump on her back… no don’t worry, it’s not bad… it was her cow bathtub toy. Now how in the hell did that end up there you might ask?? well I asked the same thing to her dad, as he’s the one who dressed her! She has been obsessed with this little cow lately, it is her favourite toy. She takes it into the bath and of course holds on to it when you get her out. Somehow the cow made it into her sleepers and he didn’t know (LOL!). I showed him what I pulled out and we both started to laugh, he looked at her and said you little sneak! He figured she was hiding the cow in there so that she could play with it later in her crib on the sly… tricky baby. It still makes me giggle thinking about it; tops the time he handed her to me without a diaper on (he he he).

The cow in question!

I have been trying to recall for a few days if anyone has ever told me how tricky it is to feed a baby. Maybe it’s just my baby though, or is it babies in general? She is SO handsy, lol. I know she is curious and wants to participate, but when her spoon gets slippery with food it’s a very slip and slidey tug of war that happens between the two of us. I try to pull the spoon out of her hands, but she has baby hulk strength. She also loves to put her fingers into her mouth and get food on them and rub it all over her face and hair and ears- today she almost had it in her eyes. When it’s her last feeding of the day I don’t really mind as she is going right into the tub and it’s a sensory experience, but in the middle of the day, when we are out, feeding can be tricky business. I have found it helps to have a buddy system- one person feeding and one person entertaining. I remind her that her hands stay down and that we don’t scratch our eyes out when our fingers have food on them, but she doesn’t listen to me, so I guess she will just have to learn for herself- it’s so messy, but so fun to watch 🙂

She is a rolling and pivoting machine right now. If you put her onto her back she immediately flips over onto her front so that she can get moving! For a brief moment in time today she was up on all fours, didn’t last long, but it happened. She has managed to move herself forward a few cm’s a few time, but only a few cm’s- moving your body is hard when you weigh 17 1/2 pounds and don’t have much muscle, lol. It’s so interesting to watch her plan her movements; she will look and think and look and think for a bit and then make her move. If she is successful the look and think gets shorter and shorter each time she tries the movement again- you can see the motor planning happening right before your very eyes. If she has challenges she tries and tries and then gets VERY angry if she is not able to do what she thinks she should be able to do, that’s usually when I pick her up and give her a snuggle 🙂

Come and get the cow!

Her dad let’s her wriggle a little bit longer than me and it is probably because of this that she ever makes any gains in her gross motor development at all. He says that I am too quick to rescue her, and he is probably right and it’s probably why he has seen most of her gross motor firsts before me- he pushes her a little bit harder. I think it’s good to have a balance between the two. I get so proud of her when she does something new, it feels awesome, but I think it feels even better to see the look on his face, it’s the way my dad looked at me when I got my BA and when I got married and when I introduced him to Everly. Daddies think that the sun rises and sets on their little girls and we little girls wouldn’t have it any other way 🙂 

I (heart) Everly.