You Finally Pooped

Words that I never thought would come out of my mouth...at least not in a jubilant way.

This morning at 5:30 am, my daughter finally pooped. And when she did fireworks went off and there were cheers all around. Okay, there weren't really fireworks, but there were cheers from the audience. An audience of two mind you. The audience started out as one, but upon realizing she pooped I called Dan in the room so that he could have a look too.

Never before would poop have been so exciting. A friend, actually Emily's Godmother, told me that this would happen and I am not sure I believed it until it did. You see, Emily has started this strange pattern of bowel movements in which she will poop for a couple of days in a row and then she will go five days before she poops again. Poor little thing - although it doesn't seem to bother her until the day before she poops. Then you can just see the frustration in her face as she grunts and all she does is pass a little gas. So bearing in mind this "schedule" Emily was due to poop yesterday morning. All day, I waited ... thinking if she doesn't poop soon I am going to have to call the doctor and make sure she is alright. We put her to bed last night and I wondered how many more days do I wait?? Well, this morning, as Emily woke up to eat (at 5:15 am!! She slept all night!) the poop came and I have never been so happy.

Emily was happy, too.

Okay, so not exactly the endearing post that you may have expected, but I thought that this was worth sharing. Not about the poop exactly, but about the amazing transformation that happens to all new parents. Being a new parent I feel I have some authority on this issue. All of the sudden things that didn't matter at all before are the most important thing in the world and things that were the most important thing in the world seem to fade in the background.

All I'm saying is that I never thought I would care so much about poop.

Trial and Error

My apologies for not blogging in a while. Usually, just as I think about blogging, Emily decides she has had enough independent time, or the dogs have to go out, or dinner has to be made...

Yes, we have been keeping our days pretty busy lately. We have gone shopping a lot (which is why I have to go back to work!), we stop by Chick-Fil-A on a regular basis so that I can fill up on diet lemonade! That cool, refreshing drink, freshly squeezed without the calories! On Tuesday, I stopped by my local Chick-Fil-A to get my large Diet Lemonade for $2.10 and the drive thru line was wrapped around the building! So, what did I do? I drove to Knightdale to grab my lemonade there.

Our laziest day yet was on Monday. Emily and I stayed in our pajamas all day long, I didn't make the bed (the horror!) and we caught up on all of our DVRd programs and movies! This was a good thing since we were running out of space with all the shows I have been recording during this motherhood thing. We are back down to only filling 30% of the DVR memory which means we can get back to recording movies on Encore.

Besides needing to catch up on TV and movies, we had another reason for such a lazy Monday. It's called "crib transition." After Emily had slept for 5 hours at night for 7 days in a row, I decided it was time to transition her to the crib on Sunday night (she's been sleeping in a bassinet beside our bed). What a crappy mother's day present to myself! Neither one of us slept much that night. I knew it was going to be a transition, but I wasn't prepared. While Emily did not sleep poorly (she was up about every 3 hours) every time I went back to bed I had one ear glued to the baby monitor waiting to see if the occasional grunt was going to turn into a wail.

After three nights of the same, I decided that I was NOT going to cave. We are all going to learn how to do this, but last night I decided to change it up a little. She ate at 8:30 and I decided that she would eat again at 11:30 (three hours is pretty typical for day time eating) and then I would rock her to sleep and put her in her crib. Emily had a different plan...

After her 8:30 eating she fell asleep on the couch with Dan around 10:00 pm. At 11:00 we all decided to go upstairs so that when she woke up we would already be upstairs and poised to make the transition to bed time in the crib. Well 11:30 came and went and rather than waking her, I thought I would just let her wake up on her own. I was sitting half up in bed holding her and expected that she would wake up around midnight - certainly no later than 12:30! So I waited...I ended up laying her beside me in the bed since my arms were getting tired. At 1:30, I woke up and Emily was still sound asleep (in the bed, mind you, which I have been trying not to let happen!). So I moved her to her bassinet and she finally woke up at 2:30 to eat. Now the big question...to crib or not to crib??? I decided to take a chance and I swaddled her up and took her to her room and tucked her in her crib. I held my hand on her chest a minute longer than normal hoping that she wouldn't wake. And she didn't! She slept until 6:15 am. And after feeding her again, I put her down in her crib and she slept for another couple of hours, waking not to eat, but just to say that she was done with being lonely.

Now, although the beginning of the night did not go as I had planned I marked last night down as a success in my book. I got the sleep I wanted, Emily got the mom time she wanted and I also learned that she can sleep at least part of the night in her crib. So little by little, we'll keep trial and erroring our way through this and figure out what works.

There are a couple of different parenting "theories" that I have read ... Parenting on a Schedule, Parenting on Demand. I was thinking I was the parenting on demand type, but now I realize I am completely about trial and error!