Friday, January 8, 2010

Stinky chins

Caring for the baby. The basics are simple, not easy, but simple. However, some of the required care is more challenging to me.

In my case, my kiddo has no neck and three chins (totally underfed...hee hee). It seems that no matter how many baths he gets, he still has 'the stink' in between the neck rolls. I try so hard to get in between those adorable little rolls to clean him properly, but I must keep missing some stinky spot.

I would LOVE to know if any one has a trick for getting this done well.

I am thinking of maybe getting out the washcloth during tummy time.

Happy Friday. I hope you have sweet dreams tonight!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Blood!

So...my baby has a new favorite hobby...making himself bleed!

I was holding him the other day and noticed blood on my shirt, at my waist. I shrieked, "what the hell is that from?" And when I laid my babe down, I saw that he had scratched his shin. He had a few fresh marks. Nice. He is always grabbing his shins when I change him. I need 4 arms to keep him from scratching himself during a changing. Ugh. I trim his nails, I file his nails...what's the deal??? No matter how much I manicure, he nails are still sharp.

Then yesterday, I get up with him for a 4 am feeding and see 4 scrapes on his scalp that are still wet with blood. He had used his entire hand (minus the thumb) to make this pattern of cuts on his head. Then I notice blood on his crib sheet too...what the hell!

He had 'escaped' from his swaddle and went to town on his head. Now I have to put mittens on the kiddo and then swaddle him and hope that will hold so he doesn't scalp himself.

Anyone else had this issue? Any advice on what to do?

Friday, January 1, 2010

How much stuff do we really need to pack for an overnight with a baby!!!!

So...we finally ventured out for our first overnight with our lil' guy. We had grand plans for a drive up the coast...for a week...all these different stops plotted out and then realized that we have almost no traveling money and even less energy, so we opted to do an overnight in Julian instead.

We love Julian and thought it would be festive.
So...we go to pack our things. We gave ourselves TWO hours to pack and thought that would be plenty, ha!

It's an overnight, right. How much stuff do we really need and how long would it really take to pack our little car?

Then the insanity began. We start with the essentials...car seat and diapers. We use cloth, so the diapers take up an entire duffle bag. Then we have plenty of clothes incase of leaks, blowouts and such. Then blankets and back up blankets. Then bedding for the co sleeper and back up bedding...okay another suitcase. Then we have our own clothes and extras incase he leaks or has a blow out on us. Then it's the pump, just in case...and then toys, spit rags, wipes, lotion, socks, hats, carrier...and so on and so on.

FOUR hours later, and one, make that two feedings later, we are heading out the door.

All of this for one night. We would need a bus to go on the original trip we had planned. I can't even imagine flying with the baby. How do you do this??? I guess I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Anyway, we had a great trip, despite the overly packed car and my worrisome brain working overtime spinning in 'what if' land.

The bed and breakfast was nice. The room was big, very comfortable, nicely appointed and relaxing! Yay! The owners were so nice and great cooks. The baby slept-ish and didn't cry all night so we didn't have to worry about the other people in the b&b hearing him, phew! And we didn't hear them either, so we could sleep.

We actually slept and relaxed and had a nice time! Woo hoo!

I can't say enough how great it was to get out of our house. Something about being away from the dishes, bills, laundry, etc, made everything better.

Even though packing was silly and and made us cringe and then laugh when we could barely fit ourselves in the car, I think we learned a good lesson...get the hell out of the house more often, pack the whole flipping house if you have to, but take a break now and again!