She's been taking baths of the tub variety, a pleasant departure from the tedium of the sponge bath where Zoe and I would set her precariously on a towel on the sink and wipe her down. She was less than enthusiastic about these affairs. Now that she's been taking her baths in her Safer Bather in the tub, however, she's appeared to be endlessly amused (contrary to what the photographs might have one believe).
Since Friday, she has been using a bottle for some of her feedings. This gives me a break and allows Rob to participate in one more child-rearing activity.
He's currently getting in a much-needed nap, as he stayed awake for all but the entire night (his feeling is that it's easier to stay up and tend to her when needed than to be woken up by her.
Understandable). At one point I awoke and he eagerly began educating me on the processing of canola oil (a subject we'd been discussing yesterday), until I drifted off again. I'm no o good at passing the wee hours awake. Right now our biggest problem with the bottle is that she gorges herself and lets the milk run down her throat rather than actively suckling, resulting in some epic spit-up episodes. This morning the stuff went all over the bed, jumping over Rob and landing on my face. It was nothing short of spectacular.
Not the above-mentioned scene, but I was lucky enough to accidentally catch her in action a few days before. Just a taste.She's also reached almost ten pounds, so she must be keeping down enough milk to help her pack on weight. She certainly is not a malnourished child.
The UPS man just pulled up, and I believe he's delivering the bottle of Free and Clear Mountain Green detergent that Rob ordered a few weeks ago. We've been using Charlie's Soap with mixed reviews, so we did some research on the best and most economical laundry soaps/detergents for babies and their cloth diapers. Actually, it wasn't the detergent, after all, but a basketball we'd ordered for Zoe, who just started playing (and made a basket in her first game last night. Their team crushed the opponents, as it turns out. She seemed displeased that she only made one shot, but I told her that when I played basketball in the 4th grade, I made one basket the entire season, and it was in the other team's basket, so...). The laundry and diaper situation here has been intense, to say the least. We thought that two dozen cloth diapers would suffice, but we're still finding ourselves having to use at least a couple of disposables at the end of every day because the ones we've laundered haven't yet dried. We ordered another dozen diapers, and yesterday picked up at the Machias Hardware Store (an amazing old-timey shop that acts as a health food, kitchen and housewares, and hardware store all in one) two more collapsable wooden drying racks to maximize drying space. Even our outdoor clothesline (which we just started using again yesterday) cannot accomodate the massive loads of linens we're cranking out every day (more towels, sheets, and dirty clothes from her diaper changing sessions-gone-awry, on top of the diapers themselves, than we'd ever thought possible).
And this is why I don't have time to keep a blog.
but i'm (i'm sure i'm not the only one) oh so glad you make it (time to keep a blog)- and you'll be glad you did in years to come. i like looking back and reading old ones.
ReplyDeleteshe can't have anything on jack in the spit-up department. we got showers after every feeding- especially the bottles. the sitting up for a 1/2 hour or so after a feeding helped some.
she's a dear little buggy.