Although I find it aesthetically atrocious, I have to admit that, at least on his first day in it, Jonah finds his baby einstein exersaucer thoroughly entertaining.
There’s a raised round thing he can pound on and depending on which button he hits, it moos, roars, meows, quacks, barks, announces the name of each animal in English and Spanish, and plays a piece of classical music. Except for one button, I don’t know which, that plays Old MacDonald Had a Farm. I think the duck. The trick is to hit one button four times in succession to get to the music. I don’t think he’s mastered that yet. His application of hand to plastic object is mostly random. I do like the way it sort of moans questioningly “co-ow?” in a non-determinate female voice.
He likes to pull the alligator puppet into his mouth for a tongue kiss, and seems frustrated that he can’t likewise succor the globe full of plastic beads. The three spinning dials are training him to feel at home while playing slots, for when we take him to Vegas.
Also nice is the fact that his crazy cowlicks give him an einsteinian do. Thematically appropriately speaking.
We had to stuff a pillow in the bottom because his feet don’t quite reach yet, even at the lowest setting, and even though he’s quite tall for his age, statistically speaking.
My question is, if we have this, does he still need a bouncer jumper? I kind of like the bouncer jumper. As ugly as I find the b-e stuff, I think the b-e jumper rocks. (We’ve also got the playmat — yes, I registered for these things, but that was when I was pregnant and perhaps a little irrationally in fear of breathing all the off-gassing chemicals from the new stuff at Babies R Us and Target; so I registered online, where they looked less ugly, and I was swayed by a report somewhere that said b-e stuff was less chemical-ly, which I’m not sure is true. If you’re reading this and you’re pregnant, I have two words for you: Tiny Love.)
I’m not sure which thing, bouncer jumper or saucer, is bad or worse for his spinal development, according to the “They” who say. Somehow I think the bouncer jumper is supposedly worse, in inverse proportion to the pleasure every mom I know reports their child gets out of it.
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Pediatrician now thinks that Jonah’s constant near-permanent no matter what I do diaper rash is yeast. She suggested Nistatin. I asked, is there a hippie mama alternative? She didn’t hesitate, “Gentian Violet. It works faster, too.”
The thing about hippie mama remedies, is they’re not always a health food store thing. Whole Foods didn’t carry it. The natural goods store by my house sold me gentian tincture, which is not it. The first two drugstores I went to didn’t have it. Only the third store, the Long’s that is bigger than a football field, had ONE bottle. Shazam!
So, for the time being, our boy is Prince-like in his purpleness.
Will the rash recede? I’ll keep you posted.
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It wouldn’t be a blog post if I didn’t talk about sleep. One friend who has a toddler says that sleep will dominate my conversations for about a year, and then I’ll never mention it again.
My friend Leila who reads this blog was under the impression that the shush pat and bolsters I’d written about previously was still working for us. It’s not. In fact, I think it only worked that once. But since she brought it up yesterday, I tried a variation last night — after rocking him to oblivion on my lap in the glider chair, laying him down, and having him pop awake and scream, I turned him on his side between the bolsters, held one hand FIRMLY on his belly, stroked his head with the other hand and said “shish shish shish shish” for about five minutes. That did it. That night anyway.
The night before that he cried and woke every half hour for the first two hours.
Teething? The rash? Developmental leap? Everything changes. And changes again. Still dreaming of the day when he does that 10 or 11 hour stretch that other people talk about. That sounds so luxurious. For now, a night where he sleeps till 2 or 3, nurses, and sleeps till as close to 6 as possible, is a good night.
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Jonah on the swings. Video is sideways due to it being taken with a camera phone (not mine). Just turn your laptop:
I give up. Can’t get video to upload properly. You’ll just have to imagine he’s here, swinging back and forth and smiling.
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