The Real Poop

Since this is a blog about motherhood, I suppose it was inevitable that at some point I'd be discussing poop. I swore, before Ryan was born, that I'd never be one of those moms who discussed poop all the time. And I won't be - but there are times when the subject is unavoidable. I still doubt I'll ever be making excited announcements about it (yeah, I realize I may change my tune once potty training rolls around), but I suppose to do have to mention it every now and then. And I guess today is now.

The reason the subject is on my mind is that I've noticed that almost every time Ryan plays in his exersaucer or jumperoo for any length of time, I end up having to change a poopy diaper. It makes me wonder: is there something inherent about these bouncy toys that is poop-inducing? Or is it just that the bounciness makes the poopy diapers spectacularly messy? (Did you know that if a baby in a poopy diaper bounces hard enough, the poop will actually reach all the way up to his shoulders? True story. More than once.)

I have a degree in biology, so I do know something about human anatomy and physiology, and about physics. And I don't see any particular physiological reason that bouncing up and down would induce pooping. In fact, I would think that the continued motion would keep the body much too busy for such a process. Apparently I am wrong in this, because Ryan has no trouble at all doing both at once. His bounces don't slow down, there's no pause to give me a hint of what's going on - which means there's plenty of bouncing to create quite a mess inside his clothes before my nose (or his whines) alerts me to the situation.

So I guess the solution is to be alert, put him in washable clothes when he's bouncing, and just expect poop. After all, it's inevitable.

The Baby Book

In this day and age of scrapbooking (or "scrapping", to true connoisseurs), creating a baby book for your baby is a must. If you are a creative "scrapper", you can make your own, complete with hand-written headings, scallop-edged photos, and cute stickers.

For those of us with a little less of an artistic bent (or a little less time!), there are beautiful pre-designed books where you simply fill in the blanks and tape in the occasional memento, like baby's hospital bracelet or a lock of hair from that first haircut.

But for me, the most exciting part of Ryan's baby book is the "page of the month". Each month, I get to think back about everything new that he's learned to do in the past few weeks! I look at the previous month's page and realize that just one month ago, he wasn't laughing on a regular basis, he wasn't able to grab his toys yet, or he hadn't begun to make any attempts at sitting up. I realize how much he's grown and changed in those few short weeks. Most of the changes he's undergoing right now are so gradual that it's hard to notice them, since I see him every day. But looking back at my own written record of one month ago reminds me of how far he's come.

So I may not be using my fancy scissors to edge photos each month, and I may not have a collection of stickers in the shape of baby bottles or rattles or teddy bears, but I look forward to each new page of Ryan's baby book every month anyway. It reminds me that my baby's come a long way, baby!

The Mystery of the Missing Monkey

For the past two weeks, I have been scouring the house and both cars in search of Ryan's beloved fleece "monkey blanky". (OK, it might just be more beloved by me than by him - he came home from the hospital snuggled in it, which makes it very precious to me. But it's definitely his and it's definitely loved.)

Herb and I both wracked our brains trying to remember when and where we'd seen it last. The last time we were both certain we had it was on a shopping trip to buy Herb some new shirts, about two weeks ago. It was a dark and rainy night, and when we'd pulled out of the parking lot, I had noticed that we'd dropped one of Ryan's white spit rags in the middle of the street, but considering the weather (and the fact that we had 47 more - literally - at home), we just let it be. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether the spit rag wasn't the only thing that fell out of the baby carrier while we were tucking Ryan back into the car. How could we have not noticed losing such a big item? Especially on a cool, wet evening, we would have realized that Ryan's blanket was no longer snugly tucked in around him, right? So I basically dismissed that idea and assumed that after a few more good searches the blanket was sure to turn up - hanging in the laundry room, or tucked underneath the crib, or stuffed under the back seat of one of the cars.

But yesterday afternoon I just happened to be in the vicinity of that particular store, so I figured I'd take a quick cruise through the parking lot on the off chance that the blanket was still there. Now, I need to explain that in the two weeks since that shopping trip, we've had several days of snow squalls and just a few days ago we had an unbelievable windstorm that knocked out power, knocked down good-sized trees, and generally blew everything all over the place. So even if we had lost the blanket there, there wasn't much chance that it would still be there after two weeks of good weather, and the chances that it would be there after those particular two weeks were even slimmer. But the more I had searched for that blanket, the more upset I was at losing it. So I had to give it a shot.

As I pulled into the parking lot with Ryan dozing in the back seat, I prayed out loud, "Please God, you know how much this blanket means to me and how much I want to find it. Please let it somehow still be in this parking lot. I know there's absolutely no reason it should be, and I know this might not even be where we lost it, but you know how much I need to find it and this is the last place I can think of to look." And as I turned the car down the aisle where we'd parked that night, there was only one empty parking space. It just happened to be the same space we'd parked in that night. And there, directly underneath where a car's front end would have been hiding it from view had a car been parked there, was a filthy, sodden, yet very familiar green and brown and yellow lump. I blinked for a second, then half-pulled into the parking space, threw the car into park, and jumped out. I grabbed the lump in all its wet, filthy glory (it was so full of dirty water that it must have weighed 3 or 4 pounds) and plopped it, dripping and muddy, on the floor of my back seat, chirping happily to an oblivious Ryan, "Look what Mommy found for you!"

But we both knew it wasn't just Mommy who found it. There was definitely a little heavenly help involved.

It's For the Birds

Spring must be coming, because in the last week suddenly all the birds in our backyard have been breaking into their spring songs. The chickadees are calling, "Sweetie! Sweeeeeee-tieeeeeee!", the cardinals are singing their loopy, drunken-sounding Three Stooges "Whoop whoop whoop!" love call, and various assorted songbirds that I can't even identify are swapping their dull winter chirps for impressive trilling sonatas and arias. Instead of a single blue jay, I can hear pairs calling back and forth - love songs or territorial warnings, I'm not sure which, but without a doubt, a sign of spring.

And of course, this also means that our birdfeeders are being visited by a constant stream of feathered friends, which Ryan absolutely loves. He often plays in his jumperoo chair in the kitchen while I'm puttering about washing dishes or making breakfast, and his attention is continually being drawn to the action at the feeders. The pert chickadees and titmice who announce their landing with a loud PEEP! The bright male cardinal who reminds us he's still there with his repeated chip chip chip. The shy woodpecker who sneaks up to the suet one hop at a time and flies away if the braver juncos cut in line. The cloud of starlings who can't quite stuff their chubby selves into the suet feeder but have to content themselves with the scraps on the ground dropped by the other birds. Ryan is enraptured by all of them.

He has no idea, of course, that spring is coming or that these songs are different from what he's heard before. To him, the birds are just something bright and moving and fun to watch and listen to. But to me, they're the hope of spring, the promise of warm weather to come, and another reminder of all the new joys and excitements that will be on their way in the coming weeks and months.

Girls Who Wear Glasses

"Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses." This saying has been around forever, but I suspect it was popularized when Marilyn Monroe said it in the movie, "How to Marry a Millionaire". Naturally, Marilyn managed to snag herself a very nice millionaire (even if she thought he was just a gas jockey) despite her dorky glasses, but then, she was Marilyn Monroe. I should look so unappealing in glasses.

But one person that I know will never think less of me for wearing glasses is Ryan. He apparently has quite a thing for women wearing glasses, as I discovered yesterday. I took him to visit my mom during her chemotherapy treatment. The nurses she sees are the same nurses I used to see for my rheumatoid arthritis treatment, so I've known them for years. They avidly followed my romance with Herb and were thrilled to death for both Mom and I when we told them I was pregnant. So as soon as we arrived, the whole nursing staff gathered around to coo over Ryan.

Fortunately, he was in a particularly cheerful mood. He tends to mug it up when new people admire him anyway, but he was in especially fine form right then. He grinned his crooked, dimpled grin for everyone, but he totally turned on the charm and made delighted giggles for one nurse who happened to be wearing glasses. Another nurse jokingly commented on it, and just for fun put on her own reading glasses - and was immediately rewarded by a HUGE grin and a lunge in her direction. Apparently my little man DOES make passes at girls who wear glasses.

Even the ones who don't quite look like Marilyn Monroe.

Grasping at Straws - and Hippos, and Monkeys, and Bears

Ryan is reaching the stage where he is finally starting to be able to control his hands. He started off by randomly flailing in the general direction of what he wanted, then by deliberately flailing more specifically in the direction of what he wanted, and now he has enough control to actually deliberately bat at what he wants and most of the time, with enough persistence, grasp it. It's a very exciting time!

As with anything else, he has a few favorite things that he loves to hang onto. One of the first objects he did well at grabbing was a plastic ball made of rings:

He likes it because it rattles, it's good to chew on, and if he flails in its general direction, his fingers get caught in the rings and he can hang onto it fairly easily. It also makes very good noises when he flings it across the room. (By accident, now - no doubt it will be very much on purpose in the weeks and months to come.)

Another highly grabbable toy is his teddy bear:

Bear is very soft and squeezable so any part that Ryan grabs allows for a good handhold. Bear has the added benefit of having many chew-worthy parts: ears, hands, feet, even the brim of his hat and his little curls. Ryan doesn't seem to mind the lint factor; apparently the nappy texture that would make an adult gag feels just lovely on those tender gums. Bear can also be squashed extremely tightly to the body without damage to either baby or bear, which is apparently a very positive trait in Ryan's mind.

Of course, his beloved spitrags also belong in the grabbable category:

Not only can they be grasped at any point, tugged in any direction, and are useful for chewing, waving around, and dropping on the floor, there are literally four dozen of them in the house so there is always one (or five) close at hand.

But by far the most fun toys to grasp these days are the animals hanging from his bouncy chair:

The lion in the middle plays music (or purrs, or meows - which will be very confusing when we learn the animal noises: "What does the lion say?" "Meow!" "No, the cat says 'meow'. The lion says 'roar'." "Not MY lion, Mummy!") when you pull his ring, the monkey on one side rattles, and the hippo on the other jingles. The lion is still a bit too far for him to reach (although he does bat toward it often), but he absolutely delights in hooking his wee little fingers through the hippo's and monkey's rings and shaking them all over! The drawback to this toy is that the weight limit of the chair is 25 pounds, and since he currently weighs 24 pounds...well, YOU do the math. He's practically bottoming out in the chair now anyway, and at that angle whenever he bats at the lion the rebound nearly smacks him in the face so it's probably a good thing we stop that one soon.

I can only imagine what he'll be grabbing on to next. Anything within his reach, I'm sure! I love watching him gain more and more control day by day, and although my life will be made much more difficult once he can grab things on his own, it will also be much more exciting!

Tag Team Parenting

Although I don't think I've ever seen an actual match, I am somewhat familiar with the general concept of tag team wrestling. According to Wikipedia (slogan: "I read it on the Internet so it must be true"), the unique rules of tag team wrestling are as follows: "In [tag] team matches, only one entrant from each team may be designated as the 'legal' or 'active' wrestler at any given moment. Two wrestlers must make physical contact (typically palm-to-palm) in order to transfer this legal status. This is known as a tag, with the participants tagging out and tagging in. Typically the wrestler who is tagging out has a 5-second count to leave the ring. The non-legal wrestlers must remain outside the ring or other legal area at all times (and avoid purposeful contact with the opposing wrestlers) or face reprimand from the referee."

This is a pretty good description of how Herb and I hand off the baby these days. Herb's been getting up with him in the morning, then after I get showered and dressed, he hands him over to me so he can get ready for work. And when Herb gets home from work in the evening, I hand him back over to him so I can get dinner ready. There isn't necessarily palm-to-palm contact for the "tag", but most of the time the partner tagging out definitely gets out of the "ring" well within the 5-second count!

But what really makes this parenting system so parallel to tag team wrestling is the reason for the handoff. In wrestling, when one team member is exhausted, or obviously losing the battle, or simply overmatched by his opponent, he tags out in favor of a teammate. In parenting, when one of you is exhausted, or obviously losing the battle, or simply overmatched, he tags out in favor of the other parent. It gives each team member/parent a chance to catch their breath, to re-evaluate the situation, and even to see how someone else approaches the situation.

The rewards are quite different, though. With successful tag-team wrestling, the best you can hope for is something like this:

But with successful tag-team parenting, you end up with something more like this:

And I know which trophy I'd rather have at the end of the day.

The Magic in the Mirror

As I've mentioned before, Ryan has a decided preference for cheap toys - the box, rather than the contents, if you will. He'd rather chew on my knuckle than the fancy frozen chew toys designed for that purpose. He'd rather snuggle his spit rag than any of his adorable teddy bears or other stuffed animals. And at the moment, his favorite toy isn't a toy at all, it's a mirror.

He's not especially particular about which mirror, either. There's a full-length mirror in our bedroom that's very handy because the overhead light is nice and bright and you can get right up close to it. There's another full-length in the basement that's short enough to play peekaboo with Mommy's reflection (if I stand up straight he can't quite see my face). And the excitement of all the bathroom mirrors is either making Mommy have to sit on (or in) the sink or sitting in the sink himself.

He's also always torn about whom he wants to watch. (I know, "whom" sounds odd there. But it's grammatically correct and I'm having a Grammar Nazi moment. So sue me. Aaaaand we're moving on.) He seems fascinated but a bit puzzled by the baby in the mirror, and will gaze at him intently (but somewhat blankly) for several minutes at a time. But then his eyes wander over to Mommy's reflection and they light right up in recognition, and then he bursts into a beaming grin. That's the best feeling in the world!

I'm not sure if he understands yet that the baby he sees is himself. I let him see my finger moving in to "boop" (well, technically, "meep") his nose, I kiss his cheek with a loud raspberry, I wave his hands in front of his face so he can see that the baby in the mirror is doing the same. But I suspect that at this point all he thinks is that the baby in the mirror has a mom who's almost as cool as his mom. She even knows the nose-meeping trick! And she does it every time HIS mom does it! How cool is that? But I don't think that thought is yet followed by a "Hey, wait a minute....."

I love watching Ryan learn new things and develop new skills, like reaching for his toys, deliberately grasping things, watching people he recognizes, and making visible cognitive leaps (big words meaning "he's thinking actual thoughts!"). And as much as I want to savor every moment, I can't help but look forward to each new physical and mental step. So I'm eager to see him figure out that the baby in the mirror is him. I'm not quite sure when it will happen, or how I'll know it has happened, but I know that it will and I will. And I plan on spending plenty of time staring into mirrors with him until it does!

My Baby Ate Your Dingoes

We've all seen this T-shirt and heard the old line, "Dingoes ate my baby!" Well, no dingo alive could manage to eat my baby. In fact, any dingo crazy enough to try it is likely to get eaten itself. Because my baby continues to hold the title of World's Biggest Baby!

The latest proof is a visit we had the other day with a friend of Herb's from work who has a baby a few weeks younger than Ryan who is literally half his weight. She is a lovely, delicate little peanut who looks even more dainty and petite next to our big, rugged pumpkin:

Note that her dad is easily holding her in one hand, while I am hefting Ryan with both arms. The young lady herself seemed to be a bit dubious about the behemoth hanging out next to her:

But Ryan was a gentleman and shared his stuffed duckie, so I think his reputation as a gentle giant may be intact.

His size continues to amaze friends and strangers alike. He was a bit fussy in church yesterday so I took him into the hallway to walk while I listened to the service. Another mom was doing the same with her son, and I was chatting with her and another woman who was passing by. The other mom mentioned that her son was 10-1/2 months old and the third woman asked if the boys were about the same age. I told her that Ryan was only 3-1/2 months old and her eyes nearly bugged out of her head. "My goodness!" was her reaction. I laughed and told her we get that a lot.

He is a big bruiser, but he's perfectly healthy and strong and well-proportioned and has the shoulders of a linebacker. As tough as it is on my back some days, I wouldn't have him any other way. He is now, always has been, and always will be my perfect little baby boy. Just keep your dingoes at a safe distance.

He Obviously Didn't Get the Memo

Being a new mom in this age of technology, I am naturally subscribed to all kinds of electronic newsgroups and newsletters. Every few days a new e-mail appears in my inbox informing me of my baby's latest developmental steps. How many naps a day he's probably taking, how much and how often he's eating, when he can hold up his head on his own, when he'll start reaching for his toys, when he'll start smiling or laughing or cooing. I understand that these are only general guidelines, but I do have to laugh at how far off they often are from Ryan's actual development.

The biggest discrepancy is, of course, eating and gaining weight. Today's 16-week newsletter, for example, reassured me that the rate of my baby's growth is more important than his actual size, so I shouldn't be worried if he isn't as big as I think he should be at this point. Um, not really a problem. I'm more worried that he's going to be Andre the Giant by first grade, at the rate he's going. According to most of the newsletters and pediatricians' columns I've been reading, Ryan should be eating around 4 ounces of formula every 3-4 hours. Yeah, he DEFINITELY didn't get that memo. Even at 4 ounces every three waking hours, that would be a total of 24 ounces a day. My little man knocks back 35-45 ounces a day. But then, he weighs 24 pounds at a time when most babies weigh less than 12, so it wouldn't be unexpected for him to be eating twice as much.

Average 3-1/2 month old baby

My giant baby at 6 weeks in the same chair.

Note the location of his head sticking over the top of the chair.

SIX WEEKS, people!!

But I don't mind that Ryan seems to be a bit ahead of the curve. Sure it's a little tough on my back, and it seems we're getting him the next size up in clothes and diapers every week, and we'll be in the market for a bigger car seat before the month is out, but my big boy is healthy and strong and alert and curious. And that's what counts.