Monday, October 26, 2009

Exposed, butt cream, and baldness



I looked at the drain. Hair was everywhere. I put the conditioner in my hair and ran my fingers through it. My hands were full of hair that was no longer attached to my head. If you look at the bathroom sink, you will see my hair everywhere. It's also all over the floor, and I keep finding it in Hannah's hands and on her clothes. I seem to be molting. I would be really really worried except that I read that about 3 or so months after giving birth you start losing all the extra hair you grew while
you were pregnant. It's quite unfortunate for me as I didn't have very much to begin with. I really don't think I grew any extra while I was pregnant either, so may
be I am just going bald?

Riding the bus home one day, I sat in the wheelchair/pram section. Not because I had the pram (sorry, stroller for you americans), but because there were no other seat
s. Hannah was snug in the baby bjorn (baby carrier thing that allows you to wear your baby). I pressed the button to let the driver know to stop at the next bus stop. I waited until the bus came to a complete stop and then I stood up. The chair decided to come to life and folded itself up as I stood. Usually you have to manually fold
them up and down. I quickly got off the bus, not daring to look back to see if all the other passenger
s did indeed see my buttocks that was exposed when the rogue seat went up, taking my dress with it. I'm sure they did see the granny panties I wore that day (because all the better ones were in the wash) my bottom hanging out the sides, stretch marks and cellulite fully on display. I still wonder how my butt got stretch marks shortly before I gave birth, but not even a tiny stretch mark decided to make residence on my belly.

"Time for a nappy change Sweet Pea." I laid her down on the change mat and pulled up her dress. I undid her nappy to find a mustard coloured poo. I cleaned her up and
put a fresh nappy under her bottom. She loves to kick on her mat sans fastened nappy. "Would you like some butt cream?" I asked her. "hahahahahahahahahhaa!!!" She giggled. Apparently she thinks butt cream is hilarious. She must have mommy's sense of humour. "would you like some butt cream?" I asked her again. "hahahahah!" She was on a roll. She had never cracked up before. Sometimes she gives little singular or double giggles, but never a crack up. I asked her a few more times and got lots more giggles. I think she indeed did want some butt cream (my words for nappy rash cream, or whatever it is actually called).

Monday, October 19, 2009

A day in the life/head of Sheri






Time since birth: 15 weeks

The cup of tea I made this morning is sitting in the microwave, waiting to be consumed after it's 3rd nuke of the day. I am only now brushing my teeth and it's 11am. I haven't showered today, and I'm living in my sweats. A lot of days dinner consists of something haphazardly thrown together such us eggs on toast because there is no time to make anything else. I'm in bed at 8pm. I refer to myself as Mommy or Mama, and to Aaron as Daddy, and then talk about myself in the third person. I am mom to an infant, the most rewarding, challenging job in the world. Below is a day in my life.

6am - Hannah is grizzling, "Mommy, I'm awake, please come and get me now!" I go in her room and she gives me a giant smile and squeals at me. I love it when she does that. I try to feed her but lately she much prefers to play before eating. Playing is much more fun then eating! She always does a giant poopy in the morning. After changing her, I lay her on her mat and so she can kick with her nappy off, one of her favourite activities. She babbles to me and blows raspberries as she kicks her little heart out. She does a snart (sneeze and fart at the same time) which produces projectile poo poo. Luckily I have laid an old magazine out from the bottom of the mat, and the poo lands on it. After having to scrub the carpet and my pants a few times, I've learned my lesson.

I put Hannah on her baby play gym mat thingy so she can bat at and grab the hanging toys and play with the giant plush caterpillar (ok, it's really a centipede, but I don't like centipedes, so I call it a caterpillar), and coloured rings that I lay on her belly. Of course they go straight to the mouth and receive lots of slobbery attention.

7am - booby time! She eats some then tries to be cheeky and looks at me with the most adorable blue eyes and gives me a cheeky little grin and starts telling me about her morning. I know I shouldn't encourage her to be distracted during feeding time, but she is so cute, I just can't resist smiling back at her and stroking her hair lovingly. She gives me an even bigger smile then goes back to feeding. She makes me smile. After she's finished I wrap her up and she share's with me her disgust at having to take a nap by voicing a large whinge as I wrap her in her bubba straight jacket. She has to have the special Houdini can't get out of it wrap or she'll manage to free her hands then startle herself awake when she hits herself in the face with them. I put her in her cot, put on her bubba nursery rhyme music, and then leave the room. I can hear her whinging for a while as I do the cleaning, but eventually she falls asleep. She's not allowed out of her cot for 1 hour and 30 minutes. If she wakes up again, which she often does, I pat her belly until she falls back asleep.

Mmmm that cup of green tea sounds pretty good about now. I might sit down, drink some tea, and have a snack. I put the tea back in the microwave. I made it this morning, but haven't had time to finish it. DING DING DING. Who made the finish noises on microwaves so loud? They obviously didn't have a sleeping baby in the house. It seems when I'm trying to be quiet I become a super clutz. I drop cutlery, knock things of the table, trip over cords, you name it, I do it when trying to be quiet. Maybe I'm just super special.

I can see 3 people coming down the stairs outside in front of my house. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. They are knocking so loud I think the door might fall down. More importantly, they might wake up the bubba. Was it really necessary to knock that loud? They could clearly see me sitting on the couch sipping me tea when they came down the stairs. It's not like they had to try to awaken me from a deep sleep or anything. Before I even realise it, I've jumped up, bounded to the door, and proceeded to crankily tell the intruders to be quiet, the baby is alseep. They ask me if I've heard of the "spiritual mother." I say no and give them an I'm so not interested look. They don't take the hint and keep going. "are you a christian?" they ask. Yes I am. "and you haven't heard of the spiritual mother?" I think maybe I haven't understood them properly as they don't seem to speak english very well. "What?" I say (stupidly). They ask me if they can come in for 2 minutes to tell me about the spiritual mother. I say no and once again tell them to be quiet as my baby is sleeping. They don't get the hint and won't let up so I eventually have to shut the door in their face. My blinds are open so rather then have them still staring at me while standing next to my door, I also shut the blinds. Spiritual mother? Seriously, I don't know what bible they are reading. Not once did they mention Jesus or even God. I decide to tape a note to the door to deter people from ever knocking so crazy loud again. "DO NOT KNOCK LOUDLY baby might be sleeping." Problem hopefully solved.

Hannah starts crying. I go in there and try to calm her down to no avail. I pick her up and sit on my rocking chair. She starts farting and screaming. Sometimes I think that her farts burn her little bottom. I wonder what I ate last night to give her such a problem. She is fine after she gets all of her farts out. I didn't eat chili or anything. Maybe it's the broccoli. Grandma says that gives bubba gas. I let her out of her straight jacket and she looks me in the eyes and reaches her beautiful little hand up and starts touching my face. She sticks her fingers in my nose, mouth, ears, and touches my cheeks. We're bonding, and it's good, but her little bubba fingernails are scratching me so I put my finger next to her hand so she'll grab it and forget about touching my face.

She looks at me and makes farting noises with her mouth. Slobber goes everywhere. She finds it hilarious and I laugh. The room is a lot darker then it used to be. I look towards the window and admire my handiwork. A couple of days ago I noticed that the sunlight was getting through the blinds and onto her cot. I found a cot blanket with teddy bears on it in the closet which is about the same size as the window, so I made a curtain out of it. I think it looks pretty good.

Hannah's hungry, so I decide to feed her on the couch so I can use the computer. I still need to finish Grandma's 80th birthday present. I'm making her a this is your life book filled with photos from when she was a baby until now, and then getting it printed in a hardcover book. I see a photo of Bubba and realise her ears are starting to stick out like mommy's. Poor Bubba, she got the Beath ears. Hopefully she will get Daddy's thick hair to cover her stick out ears. I think she will as she already has a mop of unruly curls.

4pm - uh oh, start of the "arsenic hour." I take Hannah for a walk. We go up the huge hill near our house and my lungs burn. I'm very out of shape. We walk for an hour and I can feel my buns burning. They got a good workout with all the hills. I can't wait until I get the 3 wheel pram from Grandma so I can go jogging with her and get into shape for summer. I may still have my linea nigra, but I'm still going to wear my bikini. Hannah loves going for walks.

5pm - I have to hold Hannah and walk around in the house as she is quite cranky in the afternoons. As I said, it's "arsenic hour." We play aeroplanes on the bed and she giggles. It's a good distraction for a cranky bubba.

5:30 - I start to feed her but she keeps falling asleep so it takes a while. She's so cute though, sometimes I find it hard to disturb her

6pm - Daddy's home!!!!!!! My sleepy baby is suddenly full of life and gives Daddy a huge smile. He puts her on his shoulders and she holds on to his ears until they turn an unhealthy shade of purple. She loves riding on Daddy's shoulders. He leans forward so I can kiss her cheek while she is on his shoulders and she giggles. I change her nappy and put her pj's on. She is outgrowing them and her toes barely fit into the feet of the pajamas. She has the cutest big fat rolls on her thighs. I think she is going to be a fat baby like Mommy was. I give her the other booby.

7pm - bedtime. I wrap her up and put her in her cot. I turn the music on and read to her from her book of bible stories. She wants to tell her own stories though and starts babbling really loudly. Daddy is laughing in the other room. I leave the room and don't hear a peep from her until 3am when I give her a feed. Then everything starts all over at 6am.

Other things that happened this week: We celebrated Aaron and Grandma's birthdays (they share a birthday) by going out to yum cha for lunch and eating a very rich brownie cake that I made. Grandma cried when she saw the book we made her for her birthday. Aaron got something like 8 more games for his birthday. I think that means we have a hundred and thirty something now.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Farts, Squeals, Cot, Fat, and Toys



Time since birth: 14 weeks

Pppfffllttt. Burp (how do you spell the sound a burp makes??). "Good girl! Get that wind out!" I've noticed that I'm not the only mom that praises her baby for "getting her wind up/out" (burping and farting). Newborns seem to have a difficult time getting their wind out sometimes, so when they do, we let them know how good they are. I still tell Hannah she is a good girl when she burps (I usually laugh when she farts. How such a big noise comes out of such a little baby is beyond me, but it's very very funny. Sometimes she even looks right in my eyes and gives me a really cheeky grin when she farts). So, if we praise our babies for burping and farting, but then get older children in trouble for it, when does it become socially unacceptable? Doesn't it confuse kids that one day they praised for it, the next they get in trouble? When is the cut off for being able to burp/fart in public (and by in public, I mean in front of people other then your family/friends you feel comfortable enough to do that in front of)? How do you explain it to your children after they have been able to do it freely all of their lives?

Ring Ring. I was calling the dentist's office to make Aaron and me an appointment. "I think the line is breaking up," the receptionist said. "No, that's my baby," I replied. Hannah was making so much noise, the lady seriously thought there was something wrong with my phone. Grandma was playing with her, and she just discovered how to squeal in delight. She was pretty much in one giant squeal for about an hour, she was so excited to play with Grandma. I've been trying to get her to do it for me, but she will only do little ones. I guess Grandma is her favorite. She adores Grandma. I tried to film her doing it, but as soon as the camera comes out, she stops what she is doing to stare at it (that goes for still camera's too).

I've been pretty tired this week as Hannah was having a growth spurt. She was waking up 2-3 times per night (she usually wakes up once or if I'm lucky not at all). Babies have a growth spurt at around 3 months old, and hers was a beauty, she gained 700g in 2 weeks! I haven't weighed her yet this week (I weigh her on Wednesdays), but I think she has gained a fair bit this week too. She weighed 5.8kgs last week, so maybe she will crack 6 this week.

It was 9pm, an hour past my bedtime (no laughing, Hannah goes to sleep at 7, so if I want a decent nights sleep, that's just what I have to do). Following the instructions I got from the Google (haha), I was still getting us nowhere. The Jess pulled into a 7-11 to get some gas. I called Aaron and told him where we were. He got on google maps and laughed. "You're like 3 streets down from where you're going." "But we've been down the road twice, and I haven't seen the street we're looking for." He had to explain it to me about 3 times (I'm very special with directions... I don't know how I was ever a pizza delivery girl). The road we were on turns to the left, and goes straight. We were supposed to go straight instead of veering left (road designers, why, oh why would you do that? One road does not need 3 different names in one mile!). Finally, back on track.

There was a van in the driveway, and the lights in the house were on. "There wasn't supposed to be anyone home," I said to The Jess. "Well, I drove you all the way here (which wouldn't have been far had it not been for my special interpretation of the google directions), we have to get it now." "Ok, let's go." We light-footed our way to the garage. We could see someone sitting on the couch. "Maybe he's house sitting, I was told they aren't coming home until tomorrow." "What should we do." "Let's just keep going." It seems the man on the couch was either ignoring us or had really really bad peripheral vision. We grabbed the some pieces of the cot and snuck back to the car. I was a little afraid the man would be waiting for us with a baseball bat when we went back to get the rest of the cot. Luckily he wasn't. "I don't know how he didn't see us, but I really don't think he did." "That, or he knows we are there, but doesn't want the social awkwardness of saying anything." "Maybe." We got the rest of the cot, loaded it up, and drove off. I sent a text message to the cots owner, letting her know that we picked it up. She was away until the next day, but told me I could go ahead and grab it out of the garage if I wanted to. We did feel a bit like robbers though, since there were people there.

The next day, I got a text message from the cots owner. She said her husband was home at the time and hosting a bible study. She said we were good robbers, no one saw or heard us even though we were right there and could see someone through the sliding door. Don't worry, we have no plans of getting into that line of work....



Tuesday, October 6, 2009




Time since birth: 3 months
Total weight loss: I decided I'm not going to update that every week from now on. I'll just let you know when I get back to normal

Dear Boobies,
Please refrain from leaking while I sleep. I don't particularly enjoy waking up in a puddle of milk (nor does Aaron enjoy trying to cuddle me while sleeping only to be met with sticky milk). I fed Hannah only 4 hours before waking up in said puddle. Why would you leak on me like that. I really thought we were past that, it's been so long since you previously made puddles in the bed. How about you go back to waking me up when you are full by feeling sore and engorged, instead of leaking everywhere? I promise I'll be happy when you wake me up that way. Ok, maybe not happy, but not cranky.
Thanks,
Sheri

Pllffttt. Grandma and I looked at each other and giggled. We were with Hannah in the waiting room at the cardiologists office. Hannah gave us a cheeky grin and did another big fart. We couldn't contain ourselves this time and burst out laughing. Hopefully everyone else in the waiting room knew it was the baby making such noises and not me or Grandma, but we couldn't stop laughing anyway. PPPLLFFTTT!! Hannah was trying to blow Grandma's lap off. Tears started rolling down my cheeks from so much laughing. Changing her diaper, I saw the biggest poo Hannah had ever done. It was a 4-wiper poo. I usually only need to use 1 or 2.

The Cardiologist called us in and I took Hannah's shirt off. He got out the ultrasound thingy mabobby, put it on her chest, and she giggled. Amused, the cardiologist leaned down to try to get her to laugh again. Bang! Hannah kicked him in the face. She thinks it's amusing to kick people (probably because we laugh when she kicks her little legs, and we laugh harder when she kicks us with her little legs). I couldn't help but laugh, and then explained to the cardiologist that it was a game we play.

Hannah was very well behaved during the exam, and the little hole in her heart has amazingly shrunk a little bit. It may close completely, but even if it doesn't, it's unlikely to do her any harm. We don't have to go back until she is 2 years old. As soon as the cardiologist was done, Hannah decided she was hungry and screamed the house down.

In the waiting room, I whipped out my boob. Grandma tried to shield me with the pram. Judging by the horrified expression on her face, I'd say that in Grandma's day, people didn't just whip their boobs out in public to feed their babies. I don't mind feeding Hannah in public, but there are some people who I would not feed in front of. Top of the list: all of my male relatives. Also, the ministers at church. For some reason, I just couldn't do it in front of them, it would be weird.

Playing with Hannah on the bed, Daddy sat her up. She looked pretty stable, so Aaron let go. Hannah sat up un aided for about 30 seconds. I rushed to get the video camera, but she doesn't like to perform with the camera out. I think the camera itself is far too fascinating. She loves technology too (Daddy's girl!), always grabbing at and touching keyboards, laptops, mobile phones and ipods. She's a clever girl!

It was good being heavily pregnant during winter rather than summer so I didn't get too hot, but there is one drawback. The electricity bill! At $496, the electricity bill for keeping Hannah warm was our highest ever.