this post is all about poop

You read the title. Consider yourself forewarned.

I think there's something about becoming a mom that causes you to be obsessed with poop. It makes sense if you think about it: you can learn a lot about your baby from their poop. It's the easiest way to tell if you're producing enough milk. It's an early indicator if they start to get sick. And it's something you have to deal with, like it or not, so you might as well get interested in it.

So last week Anastasia had some problems with her poop. I'll just put it bluntly, since I warned you in the title: she had diarrhea. Which isn't necessarily a big deal, and it isn't that unusual for a baby, but it's the second time she's had it, and she's only five months old. This struck me as a little strange. Add that together with the fact that neither episode was accompanied by any other symptoms like a fever that would indicate a virus, and I was starting to wonder if she was reacting to something I was eating.

So I started reviewing what I'd been eating lately, and the only thing that stuck out as different was the chick-fil-a milkshake I'd had the night before this latest episode. I did some online research and discovered that not only were her symptoms very typical for a dairy sensitivity or allergy, but the fact that she didn't have a fever or any other symptoms either time indicated that it probably wasn't a virus. I talked to my pediatrician, and she said the same thing. 

So that's it for me and dairy. It's just as well--I really shouldn't eat it anyway, since I'm sensitive to it too. I was really enjoying the ice cream though. 

baby houdini

I'm just laughing this morning at how active Anastasia is. She will not fall asleep without swaddling, but she can wiggle out of the best swaddle known to man. The other night I wrapped her in Matt's baby blanket so tightly that I even tied a knot to keep it in place. Then I put a swaddle blanket (the kind with velcro to hold it shut) on top of that...but by morning, her arms were out and waving.

Right now she's swaddled for her nap, but she somehow managed to turn over from her back to her stomach. Swaddled. How is that even possible? I have no idea...but I have a picture to prove she did it.



You can see that she's rolled over, because she started out lying on top of the pink blanket.

In other news, she didn't pee in her diaper at all last night. Not once. She woke up every two hours as usual, and at 2:30 am she was very restless, kicking her legs and squirming. It occurred to me that she might want to be changed--I've usually been changing her around 3 or 3:30. She's wiggled so much in that swaddling blanket that it now has a big hole at the bottom, so it was easy to pull it up and take her diaper off, so I did, even though it was a little early. Imagine my amazement when I discovered that her diaper was completely dry. So I held her over the bowl I keep next to the bed, cued her, and sure enough, she peed up a storm.

And then it took her less time than usual to settle back down to sleep.

And when I woke up at 7:00 this morning, she was still dry. Again, of course, she peed a lot. But wow! She's been wearing a new swaddlebees pocket diaper that I bought her on diaperswappers.com (she's starting to grow out of her newborn diapers, finally, so I had to buy some more), and I love it--it's very trim and cute. But I've barely had a chance to test it, because she's hardly peed in it since I started using it yesterday morning. I've been using it like a cover with a flatfold inside it, and I think she's only peed in it three or four times in the last 24 hours. At this rate, I'll never find out whether this diaper actually contains leaks or not.

becoming a mom

Lately Anastasia has begun to distinguish among people. More specifically, she's beginning to notice a difference between the two main categories of humans in her world: "mom" and "not mom." 

For a lot of parents, I hear, this stage is frustrating because she's less and less willing to be comforted by anyone who falls into the category of "not mom." Babies who could once be passed off to someone else for a while become more clingy. Moms get more tired as they become more in demand.

That's the reaction I expected to have, anyway. I was tired when Anastasia wanted to be held all the time; I thought it would be even harder when she insisted that I be the one to hold her.

But my expectations were--as is so often the case--completely wrong. The truth is, I love this stage.

I've spent a lot of time in my life with babies and little children. I'm familiar with the pattern: you play with the baby until it gets fussy or cries, and then you pass it off to mom. I never realized how strange it would feel when suddenly I was the one people were passing the fussy baby off to. (How does one know what to do at that point, anyway?) But even stranger was the moment when somebody passed her to me--and she stopped crying. Just like that. She stopped crying because I was holding her.

Which is something I've never experienced before.

But I guess it's only one of the first of the amazing things that happen when you cross the barrier into that magical, unique, one-woman category of "mom."

she's growing up too fast already

I don't know whether to be thrilled or miserable. Anastasia just fell asleep without me.

She's 19 weeks tomorrow, and after four and a half months of needing a lengthy nursing session every time she fell asleep (every nap, every evening, and every night waking every two hours), I was thinking about making some changes. The last few days and nights her sleep has been very disturbed for no discernible reason...the other night she (and I, of course) was awake from 3 am to 6 am. So I was really ready to try something different.

Then a mom in my playgroup told me she had an Amby bed she wanted to sell. The Amby bed is supposed to be very gentle and comfortable and very good for babies who want to be held all the time like Anastasia, so I'd been thinking about giving it a try. My friend told me we could borrow it for a week to see if Anastasia liked it before we bought it. So I picked it up yesterday.

Last night she still woke every two hours at her usual times, but she didn't take as long as usual to go back to sleep. I took her out of the bed, nursed her for five or ten minutes until she stopped sucking hard, and then put her back in the bed and swung it for a minute or two. Every time, she went straight back to sleep. The whole process took less than twenty minutes every time. She usually falls asleep within twenty minutes for her night wakings...but I take longer to fall back asleep, because she's right beside me and I disturb her if I move at all. Now with her in her own space, I'm able to get comfortable without bothering her. I feel like I got twice the sleep I normally do!

But most amazing of all was this morning, when I tried it for her morning nap. She's been having a lot of trouble with this nap; I know she needs it, but for some reason she'll never fall asleep in the morning any more. But today I swaddled her as usual when I thought she was tired, nursed her, and then put her in the Amby bed. I gave her a pacifier, too, which I'm not fond of, but at this point I need a break from the nonstop nursing. Anyway, then I swung the bed for a few minutes. She didn't fall asleep right away, but she was clearly relaxed and tired, and her eyes were closing occasionally, so I stepped out of the room for a minute to brush my hair. I came back and sure enough, she was asleep. It's been twenty minutes and she's still sleeping. Maybe she'll even get a full two-hour nap like she used to! Yeah, I'm definitely sold on the Amby bed. I'll be giving my friend a check at playgroup next week.

Here's a picture of her asleep all by herself:

teaching herself how to roll over again

So yesterday when I was posting the video of Anastasia rolling over, she was watching it with me. She hadn't rolled over in a couple of weeks, but I figured it was just because she preferred to be on her back right now.

Apparently she'd actually forgotten how to do it...but watching the video reminded her.

When I put her on the floor after watching the video, she immediately rolled over several times in a row. She's done it again every time I've put her on her back today. How clever is she? She reminded herself of her new trick!

my baby is a genius

Anastasia went to the pediatrician on Monday (June 23) for her four-month well baby visit. She weight 13.3 pounds (which is the 43 percentile) and was 25.98 inches long (96 percentile!). Not that it means anything at this stage, but isn't that just gorgeous? She definitely has model potential!

Good thing I'm not one of those moms...at least, I don't think I am...

Of course her development is well ahead of average. When she put her on her stomach to see how she held her head up, the pediatrician said she "looks just like the baby in the picture"--completely ideal. But I don't think Dr. Sells believed me that Anastasia can already roll over from her back to her stomach. "That's a six-month milestone," she said, with an incredulous twist of her lips. "Is she doing it consistently? Is it really on purpose?"

Okay, it's true that Anastasia hasn't done it consistently all the time. When she first learned to do it, she did it every time I put her down for about a week. Then she stopped for a while. Then she did it again a few times, and lately she's stopped again. I think she just prefers to be on her back right now. She has turned over from her stomach to her back once or twice, but that was definitely not intentional, and she hasn't realized that she can do it on purpose yet. But fortunately, I did manage a few weeks ago to catch her rolling to her stomach on tape:



Just tell me that isn't intentional!

moments I want to remember forever

A few things I never want to forget:

...the way Anastasia looks up at me while she's nursing and suddenly smiles and then starts "talking" to me like she's telling me all about her day...

...the way she sounds exactly like a dolphin when she "talks," with squeaks and whistles that no adult human could imitate...

...the way she sometimes imitates sounds I make, like "I-ah-oo" (I love you) or "ok"...

...the way she says things that sound just like words, most commonly "ungee!" (but it doesn't really mean hungry; we checked)

...the way Matt plays the "animal sounds" game with her: "What does a cow say? Moo! What does a horse say? Neigh! What does a dog say? Ruff, ruff! What does an Anastasia say? Ungee!!!!"

...the way once when she wanted to nurse and I was getting ready for bed, and she was rooting and wiggling and looking for me, and Matt curled up next to her with his face right next to her face to comfort her...and she kept rooting around until she suddenly took a big gulp and latched on--to his nose! I came to bed to find him shaking with silent laughter, trying not to move, as she sucked and gnawed away on the most protuberant part of his face.

...the way Matt takes her out of my arms as soon as he gets home from work, looks her in the eyes, and tells her that he thought about her all day...

...the way Anastasia nuzzles into my neck when I hold her up against my shoulder and wraps her arm around my neck like she's determined to hold herself there...

...the feeling of her damp, slightly sticky, tiny little fingers gripping mine...

...the way she smiles and giggles when I touch her nose and say "boop!"

...the way total strangers gather around me everywhere I go to admire her and rave about how adorable she is...

...the way her eyes are a different color every day...

...the way she fusses and cries when she's tired, and when I take her into the bedroom and lie her down on the bed, she suddenly quiets and gets still and content and looks up at me thankfully with her big, dark eyes...

...the way she cries when she's really mad, with her arms flung up by her face and her little features all scrunched up and her skin red, and even though it makes me sad it makes me want to laugh at the same time, because it reminds me of the moment she was born and how she cried then, and how happy I was...

...the way I love her more every time I see her, and I never knew it was possible to love anyone so much.