Tuesday, July 3, 2012

When last we saw our intrepid crew ...

The Wife (and others) have recently asked why there has not been a blog post for a few months.  The answer is two fold: (a) I am fully aware there are only so many pee, poop and puke posts that folks are going to be interested in reading (certain corners of the internet notwithstanding), so until Sidney started in with new tricks I had hit a content lull; and (b) if there is any spare time on any given day, I pass out.  No, seriously, given the choice between almost any other activity and sleep, I’d take sleep 9 times out of 10.  The Wife, on the other hand, would take murdering me in my sleep half the time, and sleeping the other half.  Why?  Because she gets less sleep than I do, and the sight of me unconscious would rightly drive her to murderous rage.  In short, Baby = Sleep{0}.  It might no be as elegant as Euler’s Equation, but it is no less immutable (let’s call it Sidney’s Equation).  This being said, over the past weeks Sidney has hit some milestones that brought with them fresh comedy (but, not to worry, also poop) and thus we have a new post.  So, in no particular order:
1. Teething.  Let’s start with the symptoms: drooling, fussiness, crying and general irritability.  Now, the baby will also display some of these, in addition to: gassiness, diarrhea (told you) and the urge to chew on anything he can get into his mouth.  Teething is the largest contributor to Sidney’s Equation, or at least we think it is.  The problem being that the symptoms of teething are also the symptoms of indigestion, lack of sleep and general baby mischief.  Luckily, the same “treatments” are recommended for all of these: indigestion drops/tablets, soothing rocking, teething toys and Scotch.  The baby will also benefit from the drops/tablets, soothing rocking and teething toys.  So, what I am trying to say is that after a few weeks of random infant outbursts at all hours of day and night, everyone in the house is drooling, crying, fussing and being generally irritable.
2. Sidney’s First Plane Ride.  We recently flew down to Atlanta to introduce Sidney to the Admiral’s side of the family.  Now, we’ve all seen babies on planes before, but as with most things, actually being the people with the baby changes things drastically.  First, you are going to be bringing a lot of stuff.  A lot.  Our trip was for 2 days and we had the following: Car seat, car seat bag, travel stroller, travel stroller bag, large suitcase full of baby clothing, diapers, toys, spare crib bedding and breathable bumper (let it go), a smaller carry-on suitcase full of emergency baby clothing (in case he pukes or poops all over his current outfit), baby formula, more diapers, an emergency set of clothing for us (in case he pukes or poops all over us), and the Diaper Bag filled to capacity.  And this was just Sidney’s stuff, we also had another large suitcase filled with our clothing.  We weren’t so much parents as Sherpa.  Now, this isn’t even the stressful part.  The stress comes from having previously been the people that saw babies on planes.  We all do it, we see the baby and cringe, thoughts of an infant screaming for the entire flight running through our heads.  So the Wife and I, cognizant of this, were at DEFCON 3, looking for any sign of even a pursed lip so that we could spring into action and attempt to dam the melt-down flood.  As luck would have it, Sidney was absolutely fine and slept for much of the flight.  (Having typed this, our next flight will be a disaster because the Universe has a sick sense of humor.)   Of course, then we had to collect the 3 suitcases, car seat, stroller, diaper bag and metaphorical partridge in the proverbial pear tree.  I am amazed Nana and the Admiral haven’t shot us.
3.  Crawling.  To be fair, Sidney is not officially crawling yet, but he’s fully aware that he can move his body to get to something that is just out of reach.  That being said, his current method is to get on his belly, look up to see the thing he wants, plant his head back down and then thrust himself an inch or so in the direction of the object … dragging his face as he goes.  He plainly is not happy about the face dragging, but he’s determined to get to That Thing™ right now.  I am simultaneously amazed that at 5 months he’s figured out that locomotion is possible, and intrigued that “face dragging” has remained an option.  But, not to worry, any day now I’ll be posting that he figured out that keeping his head up made locomotion easier, but we had to raise everything in the apartment by a foot.
4.  Eating solid food.  This one is also going to get it’s own blog post shortly if for no other reason than I want to describe the flavor of different baby foods in great detail.  Spoiler alert: some of it borders on gustatory assault.  But, for now, let’s leave it at Sidney is eating small portions of “real” food twice a day.  The comedy comes from his almost immediate discovery that he could grab the spoon carrying the food and “help” us feed him.  Translation: baby now has a handful of food, a death grip on the spoon, and you have no idea how to: (a) get the spoon into his mouth; (b) get the spoon out of his hand; and (c) return the spoon into the food container to start all over without the tiny tot flinging, catapulting and/or otherwise launching baby food in some random direction (most likely at you).  The answer is, apparently: very carefully and with little success.  Oh, and solid food turns baby poop into “real poop” after just one feeding.  It’s the gift that keeps on giving.  Has anybody seen my Scotch?

1 comment:

  1. "his current method is to get on his belly, look up to see the thing he wants, plant his head back down and then thrust himself an inch or so in the direction of the object … dragging his face as he goes." <-- This almost made me spit up.

    My lovely children didn't do this, they discovered they could roll around right before crawling and used this method, which a: got them where they wanted to go, eventually.. and b: got them incredibly dizzy which I found very amusing.

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