Owie. But also some stuff to be grateful for.

I haven't written in a bit because I had a week from hell and haven't felt much like getting out of bed, much less writing. At first I was all, 'Oh, I won't talk about it, it's so unladylike and so very unbecoming,' but on second thought I don't really care. I'll still try to use euphemistic language so as not to offend anyone's delicate sensibilities, but other than that ... hah.

So I've been having a week of uterus pirhanas and it's been driving me insane. Since having Essie PMS has been twice as bad (maybe more, since it wasn't something I suffered from much before and I considered myself lucky.) My usual depression/anxiety combo kicks into extreme overdrive and I feel like the world is ending and there is no hope for the future for anyone, ANYONE. So far I've been thinking I'm lucky since I'm not having 24/7 postpartum or anything like that, but the week leading up to the event is quite ungood in my brain. And during the actual event? Phyisical pain like crazy.

It's tiresome and I do not want. It's yet another reason to add to the list of countable blessings with regard to having a happy, low-fuss baby. If I felt like this and had to deal with hours of screaming or sleeplessness I'm sure I'd be looking for bridges or tall buildings right quick, but Essie is so very, very good. I also often feel awkward talking about that, like I should somehow not bring it up in case I'm perceived as bragging and thus alienating anyone reading who has to deal with a baby with colic or whatnot, but I have to give this kid her props. She's posessed of an extreme good nature and I appreciate her for it every single day. Taking it for granted? Not over here.

So, that's my last couple of weeks emotionally in a nutshell. LUCKY for me there was some extreme goodness in there. My family threw me an awesome baby shower last weekend. La hosted it and did all the prep work and inviting and whatnot (because she's so incredibly awesome and beautiful.) It was full of moms and aunts and uncles and cousins and sisters and in-laws and nieces and nephews. It was co-ed (obviously) and was a BLAST. It was also hot. Really, seriously hot. Essie spent the whole time in just a diaper, even though I'd originally dressed her in a sweet pink sundress and sandals. Most of the rest of us wished we could sit around in just our unders, but it just wouldn't have been right so we all stayed clothed and envied the freedom of pink, innocent babies.

Speaking of pink, innocent babies here she is sitting in her brand new Bumbo at the shower:



SO CUTE. She's got her frog in there with her to help her fit a bit better since she's still just a teeny bit small for it. Not for long, though!

Very poop-centric, this one.

Andrew took Essie to her pediatrician's appointment last week. I stayed home, ostensibly to do some housework and make spaghetti sauce for dinner but also so that I could twirl around singing, "All alone, all alone," to myself in the empty apartment while the cats looked on.

The dishes were done, surfaces were wiped, sauce was made, songs were sung and cats were petted. Then Andrew and Essie came home and I nearly ripped her out of the sling since I had missed her sunny little self so much. After spending a while sniffing and snuggling and kissing her I got the report from Andrew on the visit.

Essie's been spitting up a lot these days. Nothing major, nothing serious, but still she's been spitting up a bit more than we thought might be normal so Andrew asked about it. The pediatrician wasn't too worried but suggested mixing a little bit of pablum in her formula to thicken it up a bit, which might cut down on her bringing it back up.

So, Andrew went grocery shopping and came home with a package of President' s Choice organic rice pablum, which I mixed a teaspoon or so of into her next bottle. She didn't even flinch, just drank it down as usual. I did the same for the bottle after that, and when she was pretty much exactly halfway through it my brain said, "BZZZT what about constipation?"

Hmmm. Essie is always constipated these days. Sometimes her poop even makes her cry. So, I looked up rice pablum to see how constipating it is and was HORRIFIED to read what moms and doctors had to say. The worst quote likened a mixture of formula and pablum to pouring concrete directly into your baby's bowels.

I yanked the bottle away and made a fresh one, making it a bit more watery than usual, even. Essie didn't care, whatever, a bottle's a bottle. She doesn't even care what temperature it is, warm or room temperature, it's all the same to her. This was Thursday. On Friday she pooped and it was a normal poop. A pre-pablum poop, I knew, since there was no way she'd processed the bottles of concrete mix from the night before that quickly.

Fast-forward to today, Sunday, the day she'd be due for a poop after pooping on Friday. She's an every-two-days pooper, this kid, and like I said; it's often very uncomfortable and downright painful for her. Poor bug. I'd had a restless night with Essie and was napping kind of fitfully. Andrew and Essie were also in the bed, relaxing on a thunderstormy day, and I heard Andrew say, "Oh, poop." He'd done a diaper scan and seen some poop. I told him he should let her work it all out and then change the diaper.

After a bit he scanned again and said, "Yeah, poop." I was excited. I sat up to witness the triumphant passing of the concrete poop, relieved that it hadn't taken weeks to work through. Andrew opened the diaper, carefully folding the sticky tabs so that they wouldn't catch on Essie's perfect baby skin. Then. Then: he pulled back the front of the diaper and revealed the concrete poop within!

Lo: A tiny nugget of poop sat forlornly in her diaper. Not even a nugget: A pellet. She had produced one tiny, insignificant pellet of poop. I laughed. I laughed and laughed. The poop pellet was just so anticlimactic.

Thankfully she produced a much more significant poop in her next diaper and I am satisfied that our concrete worries are behind us. BUT! I am getting excited for solid foods now since it seems she can process more than just formula pretty well. Go, baby, go!

Good times, good times.

Last weekend we went to Ottawa for the annual cottage weekend at Colin's family cottage. It's something I really look forward to every year, and this year even more so since it was Essie's first time. She got to meet Colin (the birthday boy) and Jen for the first time which was very awesome.



We may have overestimated Essie's ability to deal with lots of travel, though. We stayed in Ottawa at night and traveled to the cottage in Val Des Monts during the day instead of staying there overnight. I figured it would be more sensitive to the other cottage-goers in the sense that they wouldn't be disturbed by overnight baby noises or the early rising of babies that often happens. I also figured it would be easier to care for Essie in the city and that part was definitely true.




Essie was not quite herself, though, and I think perhaps she didn't quite cope with the back-and-forthing in the car coupled with the exuberance of the cottage atmosphere as well as we'd hoped. This isn't to say she was screechy or anything. No; she was just more somber and a bit more whimpery than we're used to with her. When we had her to ourselves back at Colin and Jen's place she was smiley and sweet as usual.

But O, the good times we had eating fabulous cupcakes, playing games, talking and even doing karaoke! (It was my first karaoke experience, and even though I sucked it was fun.) There was an incident, however. Andrew usually sets off a fireworks display after dark on one of the nights, and this year the finale firework malfunctioned and he ended up burning a couple of his fingers. Not terribly badly, thankfully, but just in case it was worse than it looked Andrew went to the emergency room back in Ottawa. This meant that Colin and another lovely couple accompanied us back to town so that Andrew wouldn't have to drive, then they headed back in one car together. We appreciated that a LOT, since I currently don't have a license and couldn't drive the rental.

His burns turned out to be mostly second-degree and warranted nothing more than some bandaids, so all is well if slightly sore.



We came home on Tuesday to our sweet cats and Essie has been doing very well. She had a pediatrician's appointment today and she's just, just shy of thirteen pounds. It's a bit less than we expected based on how she's been gaining over the last few months, but she put on almost two pounds since her last visit so that's still pretty substantial! She's getting so big and active and LOUD. She's really discovered her 'complaining' voice, and it's got quite a volume. I'm not surprised, but the days of the growls are officially over now and I'm already nostalgic for my tiny, grunty little baby. Of course this big, smiley, talkative baby is just as lovely and even more engaging but damn if they don't change overnight.

Caring more than I should.

At the infant massage class I talked about in the last entry all the other moms were breastfeeding their babies and we were the only couple bottle-feeding (with formula, no less.) I had some angsty pangs about that which irritated me since I've stressed to myself a million times that bottle-feeding Essie is NO BIG DEAL.

Well, apparently I didn't believe myself, but I think my issue is more with the opinions of other parents than it is with Essie or her health. Essie is obviously thriving, getting fatter and happier and healthier all the time. My angst stems from the fact that I feel like I may be looked down on for my 'choice'.

It wasn't much of a choice. Essie resisted breastfeeding very strongly. I was never happy with pumping at any point anyhow, and when my milk supply got harder and harder to maintain it got a lot easier to mix formula and bottle-feed her; something she was entirely content with. Instead of an agitated, unhappy baby at every feeding I had a happy, satisfied baby. It made sense to me.

I could explain that to anyone I suspect might be raising a mental brow at me when they see us bottle-feeding, but since I am a paranoid person at the best of times it's more likely that there are no mental brows and I'm being overly sensitive to perceived prejudice. While Essie was at the hospital, though, the pressure to breastfeed or at least pump breastmilk for bottle feeding was overt, and I've heard from other new moms that even with a regular, non-preemie birth there is still great pressure placed on them to breastfeed over anything else. So I do get anxious that the moms who have bought into it and think that anything less is wrong will be judging me when they see me with a bottle.

All that said, I was very aware of the fact that at the massage class Andrew was the only dad who also fed his baby, and I'm pretty sure he was the only dad who burped his baby (although I could be wrong on that one.) It's a positive about this bottle-feeding business that I'm appreciating more and more. It affords me more freedom, yes, but it also allows Andrew to bond with Essie and take on aspects of her care that he wouldn't otherwise be likely to. I love that when we're all in bed together she'll lay there quietly watching him for long, long stretches, just staring at him. He gets great smiles from her and she'll do all she can to catch his attention when he's absorbed in something.

So I guess I need to let go of feeling so self-conscious about not breastfeeding Ess. I am aware of so many positives as a result of bottle-feeding that it's just stupidly self-indulgent at this point to think it's any big deal, especially since it's having no adverse affects on the one it matters to most: our daughter.

Overdue update.

It's been a busy week so I haven't been writing anything anywhere except on Facebook. Oh, those statuses are such an easy way to give little, pithy updates. I have a Twitter that I don't use much because of Facebook statuses, even, and I have it set so that my tweets become my status.

Anyhow, I was overcome with sudden panic about the fact that we want to move to a two-bedroom apartment and actually have a room for Essie and her stuff rather than just having her things piled haphazardly around. Soon there will be a necessity for actual furniture for this kid, and that day is coming more quickly than I'd even thought. We've lived in this apartment for going on three years now and it's a small, dark little cave that we've crammed with bunches of junk and I've started the process of winnowing through the junk and generally cleaning the heck out of it and trying to get rid of stuff. We want to give notice and I stress out about prospective tenants looking at my living space, so figured this time around I'd better be highly proactive.

The worst part, of course, is when you feel like you're only moving the mess around, not actually resolving it. Sigh.

Essie, though, is doing so, so fantastically well. The smiles! The talking! You can tell she's really trying to emulate the noises we make and the way we move our mouths and it's hilarious. Check it:



My baby is the smartest and cutest! OK, maybe not but she seems that way to me. ;)

We took her to an infant massage class that our friend Candice, a registered massage therapist, ran. It was very cool to attend and learn how to squish our baby girl. There were some parts of it that Ess didn't like as much as others, but by the end she was totally relaxed and happy. I plan to do it as much as possible. What surprised me most, actually, was the facial massage stuff. I figured she'd hate that since she gets agitated when things are touching her face, but she loved it. It was the hand massage that bothered her most. The back stuff didn't go over super-well with her, but mostly because it involved her being on her stomach and nothing pisses her off like tummy time. SO: If you have a newborn or infant and think that sounds like fun, make sure you check Candice's site for class schedules. I might do it again just for a refresher sometime!

I'm sure there are a million more things that I'd intended to write about but my mind is totally blanking on them right now. Essie's not feeling so hot today so I'm a bit worried about that even though it's nothing serious. Just more sleeping than usual and more crankiness, plus a touch warm-feeling. It's probably just a growth-spurt and I'll find out tomorrow that she doesn't fit into any of her onesies any more. She's like a weed!

Oh, how you've changed.

Becoming a mother for the first time is scary in a lot of ways, but one of the less talked about ways is that it can be a problem for other people in your life. Your life changes drastically, and so your interactions with others change as well. I understand that well, and understood it before I had Essie. I never said to myself, "Oh, motherhood will never change me. I'll still be the same old Keltie!"

What I was most afraid of? That it wouldn't change me. That I'd be the same old Keltie.

Being pregnant was overall very odd for me. Just when it was getting real and fun and far less tiring I was suddenly an early mom. I didn't get a lot of opportunity to get past the 'this can't be real' phase before it was incredibly real and twice as terrifying. I looked definitely pregnant for about, oh ... two weeks? Tops. Nobody ever gave me their seat on the subway or patted my belly.

So I don't feel as if I changed much as a person during that time. I hadn't made room in my brain for the reality of Shaughnessy since I thought I had more time to get used to her being inside of me. She was a concept, and a pretty major one, but not part of the world yet. She was yet another oddity about my physical being that I was contending with, I guess.

The circumstances of her birth were kind of equivalent to being thrown into a pool when you can't swim. And the pool water is freezing cold. And not very clean. I had to learn to swim with a quickness. Once I was discharged from the hospital I had to do all kinds of things that I wasn't thrilled about doing, but having a kid takes choice away from you completely. You don't have a choice about taking care of your baby. YOU had it, you silly thing, so you have to take care of it. I had to pump if I wanted her to have my breastmilk and I had to get out of the apartment every single day to go see her and take it to her (something difficult for my agoraphobic self, even if it doesn't sound like such a big deal.)

Now that she's home I have even less choice. 'Sleeping in' doesn't actually exist any more, even if Andrew is taking care of her while letting me sleep. On a very visceral level I'm so attuned to being her mother that the sound of her crying or making any other baby noise will wake me and I'll be on high alert even when I'm trying to get myself settled back to sleep. But when I do have to wake up to her cries or whimpers for a bottle or a diaper change it sucks as much as waking up to a strident alarm clock. It feels shitty to rouse yourself from comfortable sleep. There is no choice though, and so I do it.

So on that level I have changed. I have a giant new responsibility and I'm doing what is necessary to fulfill it and changing my entire previous lifestyle to accommodate it. The nice thing about babies is that the longer you work at it the greater the returns. She's started smiling at us now when she sees our faces, which is pretty awesome at a time when you're feeling sad about having to be awake.

I've also changed in some ways that I was worried I wouldn't. I worried I wouldn't love my baby enough, which is so obviously not the case that I feel relieved every time I think of it. She is heart-splittingly lovable and I can't decide if it's that I have an exceptionally awesome kid or it's a built-in failsafe kicking in deep in my brain. Whichever; I don't care. I love this kid. I spend all day with her and it's all about her needs coming first now, not mine. It's not painful in the way I feared it would be, though. I worried that I'd be the mom sitting there staring at her wailing baby trying VERY hard not to smother it with a pillow and yes; there are frustrating moments so far, but no murderous instincts. I know that there are tantrum times coming down the road that I'll have to contend with. For now, though, I'm just happy that I've turned into a mother, one who loves her daughter when she's unhappy as well as being smilingly adorable.

So, um ... I've changed. I'm finding that it's hard to put into words how I've changed, I guess. I am embracing the all-consuming aspect of it right now in a way that might be surprising to anyone who knew me before Essie was born and had heard my many reservations about motherhood back when I was contemplating never having children. She's here, though, and I am now throwing myself willingly into the water rather than being forced in. I'm taking all the pictures I can, talking about her all the time, noticing other babies more as a result and maybe squee-ing a bit over them. I'm not trying to retain my concept of what I was before she came along; rather I'm excited about watching what I grow into now that she's here.

My hope is that if you love me, so are you.

Home again, home again.

We spent the last two weeks in Kingston with my mom. It was awesome and I knew that the danger in doing so would be that once the time came to leave I wouldn't want to. I was right and it was really, really hard. Essie had gotten used to her grandma's love and attention and it was so difficult to tear her away from that. I also hate that my mom can't see Ess whenever she wants to. :(

So I was pretty blue when we got home but Essie doesn't let me sit around feeling sorry for myself too much, so it's been the usual day-to-day stuff. It's amazing how much she changed over just the last two weeks, though! She grew her eyelashes in, finally, and looks like a real sweetie with them. She lost a ton of hair on the top of her head and it's already growing back in super-fast. The biggest change, though, is her activity level. She's suddenly much more interested in what's going on around her and while she's always been a wiggler, now she's a REAL wiggler and seems to want to be moving around a lot.

Of course she can't do too much, so this pisses her off a tiny bit. Poor bug.

We had a pediatrician's appointment today and Essie weighed in at 11 pounds, four ounces! So a bit of a gain since this past Thursday at the hospital. The doctor said she hardly even recognized her from the last visit and admired how she's chubbed up and looks bright and happy. She said that Ess was due for her next shots, though, so did them and this did not go over well with our little girl. They're given in the fronts of the thighs so the doctor had me hold Ess while she did them and while the first one made her squawk, the second one made her cry for real and it broke my heart. Essie has the saddest cry ever, especially since she never really cries. We thought she'd been working on crying lately, but this ... this was a cry.

I jammed her soother in her mouth and she resorted to sucking it sadly instead of crying. My poor, poor bug. For the rest of the trip home (including a stop at the grocery store) she was solemn and a bit sad, but she was OK once we got here and I cuddled her, fed her and then sent her off to the bedroom with her dad so I could do some stuff. They're both sleeping hard on the bed now.


Shhhh, they're 'leepin.

Anyhow, things with Ess are great. We're getting really spoiled by the reactions from health professionals about how great and healthy and vibrant she is. It'll come as a shock if anyone just goes, "Meh, she's all right. Pretty average." Even if she is average for a baby of her adjusted age, the way she started off will always make me look at her and marvel, I'm sure.

LEEP LEEP!

Yesterday Essie had the most awake, alert day of her life. It was like she was at a day-long party or something. It started at around seven in the morning and I hadn't gotten quite enough sleep. I wasn't horribly underslept, I just didn't have quite enough under my belt. So I was not prepared for Essie's sudden baby party.

You can only hold a baby for so long before you need to eat or bathe or go to the bathroom or crouch in a corner and weep. When Ess is awake, though, she wants you paying attention to her because she's pretty dependent on others for her entertainment. If you lay her down she is not satisfied. She's no dummy. She knows you're not HOLDING her, stupid, and so she will begin to prompt you to get with the program and pick her up. She does this through adorable wiggling and baby noises and it takes her a bit to escalate to anything more serious.

I took this video during the approximate middle of the party:



Twitch, twitch, wiggle, wiggle, gasp, wiggle, twitch, gasp. No crying, no real anger. Just persistent, focused action designed to alert you to her non-held, fully adorable status. I tried hard all day to get her to sleep. I used all the tricks I knew and her grandma did too. Mimi came over at one point with July and Rowan, both of whom seem very taken with Essie and like to admire her and hold her. Essie stayed awake during their visit. Usually when they come over Essie is asleep or on her way to it so Rowan (who turns four this month) will say, "The baby is 'leepin." He's also accused me of choking her to death when I'm trying to burp her on my lap with her chin propped in my hand which is not as accurate an observation, but hey. He's four.

Anyhow, Essie stayed mostly awake and kept partying. After they left, though, the baby party was winding down and Essie was becoming that partygoer. You know the one. The one who likes to talk and who has reached the point of not really enjoying the party any more but don't want to actually leave yet. So they latch on to someone and talk politics or religion or some other possibly anti-social topic and it's strident and kind of off-putting and uncomfortable to the remaining party-goers. That's who Essie became. The baby party had gone on too long, she was no longer happy about it, her eyes were red and her grumps were grumpy.

She kept falling asleep for ten or twenty minutes, then waking up and saying, "HEY, what happened to the party?" This went on until I decided to just take her to bed already and I guess once we hit the mattress she got the idea and had a normal night's sleep from then on. A normal night's sleep means waking up every three hours and demanding food, but at least there is sleep in there, right?

Oh, man. It looks like she might be entering a partying phase of her life where she's more wakeful during the day and sleeping longer stretches at night which is FINE, I just want to be aware of it so I can adapt. I'm really looking forward to her sleeping through the night if she's the type of baby to do it!

Anyhow, today hasn't been quite as party-ish. Check it:



The baby is 'leepin.

O noes! It's an emergency!

Last night we had our first emergency room experience with Essie. Thankfully it wasn't a terrifying emergency at any point. Essie'd been kind of out of sorts for about a week since starting on the thrush medication. Last night Mom and I went shopping with Mimi and when we got back Andrew said that while we were gone Essie had been fighting with drinking her bottle and then throwing up pretty much every drop she drank after each eating session. I fed her a bit more and she did exactly what he'd been talking about; struggling and fussing while eating like it was uncomfortable, then barfing it all back up.

Seeming a bit uncomfortable is one thing; not keeping any food down is quite another. After a quick call to TeleHealth we decided to just go to the emergency room with her. We all loaded up into Mom's car and off we went.

I brought a full bottle with us in case the doctor wanted to see what we were talking about and since her stomach was mostly empty Essie got fairly quiet and calm. We had a bit of a wait to see the triage nurse, then another minor wait in the common waiting area. Things moved pretty fast for us, though, since Essie is so young and a preemie to boot. I felt guilty about that since I felt like she was doing well and in no immediate danger, but I'm no doctor and if there was something serious going on with her we wanted to know.

The ER nurse was a former NICU nurse so she was extra-great with Ess, but the funny part was that she'd forgotten we were the parents of the preemie baby and couldn't tell until I mentioned it. She was totally surprised and said she'd never have known unless we'd said something about it. She took us off to weigh old Essie and I was wondering how much she'd have put on. Last time she was weighed on June 8th she was eight pounds, four ounces, and this time she was 11 pounds! This kid is not kidding around about being big and healthy.


Sucking back a bottle in the emergency room like nothing was ever wrong with her.

The ER doctor (Dr. Cottle, for all you BSG fans) pretty quickly determined that Essie doesn't have anything wrong with her other than ongoing thrush issues, and that the vomiting might be because the thrush is in her throat as well and it's irritating to her. So she just told us to continue with the meds four times a day, and assured me that no, the meds will not harm her in any way even if she seems uncomfortable. After the diagnosis she praised Essie up like gangbusters and told us we were obviously taking great care of her and that she was a superstar.

I always love hearing stuff like that, especially that it's obvious that we're taking good care of her. It does make me wonder, though, how many babies they see that aren't receiving good care. Is it in any way remarkable or are they just being reassuring? Babies are pretty straightforward when all is said and done. Keep 'em clean, keep 'em clothed, feed 'em when they're hungry and talk nicely to them. They grow! They're even amusing and interesting a lot of the time as a result.

They're not quite as simple to take care of as houseplants, but then every houseplant I've ever owned has died a horrible death of outright neglect. Essie, on the other hand, is doing just fine. I think the reason for this is that a houseplant has never once smiled at me.

Mid-trip update.

So we've been here at Essie's Grandma's place now for over a week and it's been so incredibly awesome for me to see the two of them getting so much quality time together. I think there's nothing in the world my mom loves so much as a tiny, sweet baby and if that baby is in the slightest distress she's ON IT.

Like, the other day my mom had had insomnia the night before and hadn't slept a wink. She went off to bed, but got up when she heard Essie crying in the living room with me, took her from me and walked her around until she was soothed and sleepy again. Then gave her back to me and went to bed! That's love.

Essie's been more cranky than usual the last few days because she has thrush and the medicine for it is making her feel sick. The med info says it can cause diarrhea, intestinal discomfort, stomach pain and nausea. Poor little bug. She hasn't been freaking out but she's definitely been more serious when awake and seeming more uncomfortable overall. When Essie cries you know she's in actual discomfort, not just complaining for complaining's sake. She doesn't cry much at all, this kid, so hearing it at all is startling and worrying.

Hopefully the thrush will be all cleared up soon and she'll be back to her normal, mellow self. Other than that excitement we've pretty much just been chilling out and hanging with my mom. She's bought Ess a bunch of cute clothes, of course, and we finally managed to find a couple of sunhats after discovering they're strangely difficult to find during the actual summer season. Here are some pics from the last week:


Crashed out on the sofa on a pretty brutally hot day. Just a diaper was sufficient for clothes!



After her hot nap, cooling off by a window on Grandma's lap.



Getting some morning cuddles on Grandma's shoulder.



Leaving WalMart, the only store in which we could find any sunhats for newborns. Essie's rocking it.