life with a new baby
Posts tagged poop
Strong Willed and Mega Stubborn
Dec 18th
Nathan had his well-check with the pediatrician the other day. He’s doing wonderfully. Still a little on the thin side for a baby, but all babies are different. It always bothers me when doctors whip out that growth chart and start comparing babies to each other. All babies are individuals… some are fat, some are thin, some are tall, some are short. As long as they are healthy, why does it matter how they compare to other babies? His genes simply won’t let him get fat. We’ve been trying so hard to plump him up but it doesn’t matter how much or what I feed the little guy, he just won’t get fat.
Except for those DELICIOUS CHEEKS!
Oh how I wish my metabolism was still like that. Believe it or not, I used to be thin before I got pregnant. All those days of scarfing down chocolate kinda caught up to my backside and thighs, though. I’m doing yoga now to combat it. We’ll see how that goes.
So anyway, back to Nathan’s pediatrician appointment. I mentioned to the doctor that I was worried about Nathan’s constipation. After a slew of questions, his doctor (who also worked as a pediatric G.I. specialist for a number of years at a children’s hospital) was like, Nathan’s not really constipated… He’s just seriously hard-headed, a.k.a TOTALLY STUBBORN.
I was like, of course he’s stubborn… he totally takes after ME.
So yeah, Nathan is so stubborn that he holds in his poop. The doctor said he’s seen it time and time again with strong-willed babies. They have a painful poop once, then they get it in those stubborn little heads that all poops are painful. Therefore, when they have to go, they keep it in in an attempt to avoid the pain. Holding it in causes it to become hard, and the cycle repeats itself.
Can you believe that? I never knew babies could possibly be stubborn enough that they REFUSE TO POOP.
If he’s this strong-willed now, I’m really starting to wonder how he’s going to be a year from now. Two years. Three years. OHMYGOD Paul and I are going to have our hands full.
An Upcoming Celebration
Dec 17th
Yesterday was the first day in over 100 days that I took a break from writing in my blog. I have to admit, it was nice.
Well, maybe not as nice as a big bowl of deliciously fattening chocolate ice cream, but pretty damn close.
Even though it felt good to finally allow myself to take a break, I still felt weird not writing. I walked around most of the day feeling like I was only wearing one sock, or like I hadn’t brushed my teeth, or like I only put mascara on one eye. (Yes I have done that before, put mascara on only one eye. AND WENT OUT IN PUBLIC.) You know the feeling. That nagging sensation that you’ve forgotten to do something, only you can’t quite put your finger on exactly what it is you forgot to do.
And I didn’t forget to blog. I just chose to take a break. But all day long, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had forgotten something.
In other news, Paul and I will be celebrating our ONE YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY this weekend! A whole year! Together! With a baby! And poop, lots and lots of baby poop! We have survived!
WE HAVE SURVIVED!
I feel like standing on the rooftop with a loudspeaker and shouting, “HEY FOLKS! WE SURVIVED OUR FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE… WITH A POOPING BABY!” Because to me, that’s a pretty big deal. We are still married and couldn’t be any happier, even though we always catch ourselves discussing Nathan’s bowel habits on a daily basis.
You know you married your soul-mate when you can talk about baby poop and still find your partner overwhelmingly attractive.
So for our anniversary, Paul’s mom said she’d watch Nathan for us while we go on a date. We’re really, really excited to have some Us Time. Of course, we love Nathan more than life itself, but after a while, we start craving that elusive Us Time like there’s no tomorrow. So Saturday, we’re dropping the little guy off at Grandma’s house and we’re going out to celebrate our wonderful first year of marriage.
We will not, however, be discussing Nathan’s bowel habits.
Even More Talk of Poopage
Nov 25th
Yep. This is another one of THOSE posts that I do. Another one talking about poop. But that’s to be expected… as documented here and here, and mega-poopage can be found here. But it wouldn’t be a blog about a baby if I didn’t talk about poop, right?
For the past couple months or so, Nathan’s been constipated. Ever since we introduced solid foods, starting with applesauce. I’ve tried suggestions from other people… oatmeal, bananas, prunes… but to no avail. I tried giving him water, but he doesn’t like it and won’t swallow it.
Literally. I even tried giving it to him via syringe, as recommended by his pediatrician. But Nathan just held it in his mouth, groaned a few times, and then just spit it all out. It dribbled down his chin and drenched his clothes. He spit the remaining water out, showering me with it. So then I tried giving him some diluted juice. He didn’t like that either.
The poor little guy is really constipated. The last time Paul changed his diaper, Nathan was playfully pounding his legs down on the changing table. Evidently, Paul didn’t move the soiled diaper far enough from Nathan’s piston legs. Those little legs thudded heavily onto the soiled diaper.
DIRECTLY INTO HIS POOP.
But Nathan was so constipated that his sock left a mere sock print in it. A round little turd with a sock print. There was practically no mess. No splattering. Nothing hideous.
There was very little poop on his sock.
I feel so bad for the little guy because I personally think it sucks to be constipated. Like I said, nothing I’ve tried seems to help. Not even the prunes.
Master of Mega Poops
Nov 18th
At one point, I thought I had already experienced the King of All Poops… but I had no idea what the future had in store for me.
Last night, that future was revealed. I did not like what I saw.
Nathan woke up, so as usual, Paul got him up and took him in his room to change his diaper. Then he turned on the light.
That’s never a good sign.
“Honey?” he called. I popped my head up from bed and looked at him through the hallway. “Will you come here? I need your help,” he said. He was holding Nathan, clad only in his diaper, at arms length. I plodded into the room.
“Here, just hold him,” Paul said. “I need to wipe him down. He pooped all over himself.”
I held Nathan while Paul wiped him down and while I was holding him, I looked on the changing table and saw the soiled sleeper Nathan had been wearing.
It was completely saturated in a mixture of pee and poop.
Both of the sleeper’s legs, the feet, the entire bottom, and half-way up the back were were this disgusting brownish-yellow color.
“What the…?” I said as I peered down at the mess, horrified.
Apparently, Nathan had pooped at some point in the night without waking up. Then he peed on top of it. The pee had soaked into the poop, causing it to turn into this noxious, liquid mess that oozed out of both sides of the diaper, drenching himself and his sleeper in a vile concoction of waste. Horrified, I handed Nathan back to my husband and gingerly picked up the contaminated sleeper with my thumb and index fingers of my left hand.
I still had no idea what was in store for me.
I took the sleeper into the kitchen, set it in the sink, and started hosing it down with hot water. I watched as the water draining off the sleeper turned brown. Then browner.
Then these CHUNKS OF POOP started gushing out.
I started to sweat. I didn’t want to know why chunks of poop were now decorating the bottom of the sink. I gingerly snapped open of the legs.
Idon’twannaknow Idon’twannaknow…
“HOLY SHIT! PAUL! PAUL! THERE ARE MEGA-TONS OF POOP STUCK IN THE LEG OF HIS SLEEPER!” I screeched as soon as I saw what was inside. And I wasn’t kidding. The entire leg was completely filled up with soggy chunks of Nathan Poop.
Stinky, sticky, noxious, stomach-turning chunks of poop.
“Oh disgusting!” I cried as I carefully turned the leg of the sleeper inside out. My stomach started to roll.
I gagged.
I doused the leg with a blast of hot water, averting my eyes towards the ceiling. I tried to steel my stomach against images of poop cascading down the drain. But blasting poop out of the leg of a sleeper is like watching a train-wreck… you try your hardest to turn your eyes, but you can’t help yourself.
You have to witness the mayhem.
I looked down.
“PAUL! PAUL! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, THERE IS POOP COMING OUT OF THE OTHER LEG, TOO!” I shrieked.
I was in a Poop Nightmare. The worst poop in all of Poop Land. A sea of unrelenting poop. Mountains of soggy chunks of poop filled up BOTH LEGS OF THE SLEEPER. How does this happen?
Where does Nathan store all this? Does it pile up inside his little body all the way up to his head? Because I’ve never, ever seen so much poop come out of someone so little. So I delicately turned the other leg inside out and blasted away the poop with more hot water.
This is my version of Hell. Being accosted by mountainous piles of poop. It was all over the sink, all over my hands. There was so much poop that it had practically developed its own entity. It was taking over my mind.
After Nathan, his swing, his clothes, the sink, and myself were all cleaned up, we went back to bed.
Visions of poop haunted my dreams.
This, my friends, was the Master of Mega Poops. It was awful. Mega Poopage Awful.
And We Are Home
Oct 25th
We have finally returned home from picking Nathan up from Paul’s parents’ house. Everything went smoothly. Nathan hardly fussed at all… and Paul’s mom got to experience a Poop Bomb.
That’s right. Nathan pooped all over the place. EVERYWHERE. He couldn’t poop just a little bit. He had to let his bowels release what seemed like massive stores of stinkified, smelly poop. And Paul’s mom had to witness it. Then clean it all up.
Bless her heart.
She said he had pooped twice in a row. The first time was a pretty decent amount, complete with face-scrunching and Nathan Grunts. She changed his diaper and was in the process of putting the nice, clean diaper on him when a volcano of poop poured into the clean diaper.
She said it was like a Play-Dough Factory. You know those Play-Dough toys where you put a ball of Play-Dough in the machine, press a lever, and tons of Play-Dough flows from the opening? That was like Nathan. The poop just kept coming. And coming. And coming.
Nathan filled up two whole diapers full of poop. It got all over the place, and all over him. He was a fountain of poop. Never ending poop. She said by the time she went to bed, she was wearing bananas, prunes, sweet potatos, milk, and… yes, you guessed it, poop.
So other than Nathan pooping everywhere, his visit with his doting grandparents was wonderful. And so was the date Paul and I went on. I posted yesterday when we briefly stopped by the house for me to pump that we met up with our friends and devoured some delicious hot wings. I LOVE hot wings. The spicier, the better. After that, we followed our tradition of playing a few games of pool.
Paul and I realized exactly how old we are when we left to return home at 10:30. That’s right, I said TEN THIRTY.
I remember when we could stay out until 3 or 4 in the morning, no problem. But not lately. Our eyes were becoming heavy, our bones were beginning to creak, and I’m pretty sure I was sprouting a leaf or two from my head because I was about to morph into a pumpkin.
We were asleep by midnight.
But you know what? We had a blast! I love that man so much, and it felt wonderful to be husband and wife rather than Mommy and Daddy for a night. It was great flirting with each other and staring at each other’s butts when we bent over to play pool. We indulged ourselves in greasy bar food like fried mushrooms, clam strips, and a Philly cheese steak with fries.
I’m pretty sure I gained another 10 pounds. But you know what? It was worth it because we loved every minute of it.
This morning, we slept in later than we have in eight months. I only woke up once last night, and that was because I was thinking about Nathan. When we finally rolled out of bed, Paul cooked a mouth-watering breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and French toast, which I scarfed down with a glass of sweet tea before we left to pick up Nathan.
Nathan was extremely happy to be back home. He plastered my face with wet, slobbery kisses and filled the house with his laughter. He was in such great spirits that I was reluctant to put him to bed. As you can see in the video below, he was a very happy little guy!
We all had a wonderful time last night. Paul and I loved our date, Nathan enjoyed being with his grandparents, and the grandparents had a lot of fun with Nathan. I can’t wait to do it again!
Evolving Tastes
Oct 22nd
As you probably know by now, we’ve introduced solids into Nathan’s diet, and it’s been quite a journey already. We’ve enjoyed watching the expressions on his face when he tastes a new food (such as applesauce) and laughed at the bleating noises he makes when he likes something. As of right now, he has quite the pallet and likes all the foods we have offered him with the exception of sweet peas.
Don’t even get me started on the sweet peas.
Holy crap, you’d think I was trying to kill the poor fellow just by simply offering him the sweet peas. Offering them! Not forcing him to consume them… but simply putting them on a spoon after he’s tasted the first bite.
He loves all the other foods we’ve offered. Maybe not the first time we offered them, but after the second or third time, he starts to like them. Especially prunes. He gobbles them up, bleating loudly to let me know that I’m not feeding him fast enough. He also loves bananas, pears, squash, and sweet potatoes to name a few. He was undecided on the peaches… one feeding he tolerated them, but the next he decided they were unworthy and spit them out, looking like me like I had lost my mind for daring to think he would eat such a substance.
He detests having his face wiped after his meals. Hates it. With passion to be reckoned with.
I’m enjoying watching his willingness to try new foods. It’s neat watching his tastes evolve and I am happy that so far, he likes mostly everything … I know this phase won’t last long!
Exersaucer! Part Deux
Oct 15th
For those of you who missed the first exersaucer post, click here to read about it. For me, the exersaucer is one of the best baby inventions known to man. Well, that and the baby swing. I think I would just shrivel up and die a slow and relatively painful death without them. That, or I would lose my sanity in three and a half days flat, resulting in me being confined to a padded room because the swing and the exersaucer keep Nathan entertained and happy.
We all know how important that is because when Nathan is not entertained or happy, you’d think the world was on the verge of total collapse.
What’s neat about the exersaucer is that as Nathan gets older, he learns new ways to play with the brightly colored and textured toys. He studies them even more diligently now, concentrating on figuring out how they operate. He’s playing in it for longer periods at a time, too, which provides me with a wonderful and much-needed break. Sometimes he’ll bang away at the “sound” buttons for twenty minutes straight, cackling enthusiastically when they light up and play music.
I also like how the exersaucer has this mysterious ability to make Nathan poop. It seems like every time I put him in it, he poops.
There I go again, talking about poop. Having a baby does that do you. Seriously. Poop dominates my thoughts and most of my conversations. I even dream about poop now. Yes, you read that correctly… I dream about poop. Baby poop. Everywhere. The other night, I dreamed I lived in an igloo constructed entirely of constipated baby poop that smelled like bananas.
I’ll stop now…
Recent Comments
It's so cute how he finds the littlest things hilarious!
I'd say he gets pretty tickled, adorable!!!! .-= SuziCate´s last blog ..The Great Outdoors Of Virginia =-.
Yes! A personal maid would be perfect! Oh, that would free up SO much of my time!!
I'll take a double-layer chocolate one!!