how many licks?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?

How many roads must a man walk down?

And how many times can a baby spit up on one adorable waffle cotton striped hoodie outfit and still wear it?

* * *

Scott’s brilliant idea:

How about a tassel that you can hang on one boob or the other, to remind you which one is next at feeding time? You know, like those clean/dirty magnets on the dishwasher.

* * *

At the pediatrician’s office this week:

Me: Every time I get him to fall asleep these last two days, I put him down in the bassinet and then his eyes pop open. It’s awful!

Him: Yes. The first three months are about survival

Me (to self): Oh yeah, I’ve heard babies don’t like lying on their backs because they fear they’re falling — oh wait, he means me.

* * *

Baby weighs 8 lbs 14 oz. Growth is right on schedule.

* * *

Today was another rough one, at first. Copious crying, sparse sleep, lousy mood (on all our parts).

Then I had my 6-weeks postpartum OB appointment. Boy cried in the waiting room (wet diaper) and again in the examination room while I waited to be seen by the doc (hunger). I fed him for a while, and then he fell asleep in my lap. So I grabbed his big furry blanket and laid back on the exam table, with him on my chest and the blanket on both of us. When she arrived, the OB just examined me that way.

Most of the appointment was talking — about what kind of help/support I have, if I’ve joined a mom’s group, how I’m taking care of myself. I mentioned I was going to make some self care appointments this weekend. I got an enthusiastic thumbs up for this, and for getting to mom and baby yoga.

Afterwards, I went to visit my friend Emily because, hey, I was already out in the world, the boy was sleeping, I had a diaper bag full of clean diapers, a chest full of milk, and the sneaking suspicion that I would feel better hanging out with someone at someone else’s house rather than going back to my own empty home; which was in fact the case.

Emily loaned me her Dunstan Baby Language DVD, and Scott and I watched it tonight after dinner. I am going to sound like a shill for the thing, but… First of all, the five sounds she delineates (that Liz mentioned in her guest post), Scott and I kept looking at each other and saying YES, we’ve heard that cry.

I was nursing while we were watching, and as soon as the little one popped off, he said “Eh” so I burped him and he spit up a bit (thanks baby J) and went back to nursing and popped off “Eh Eh Eh” and I burped him again — and so it went, nurse burp nurse burp. Much more work than we’d been putting in in the past — easier to just nurse him in one long stretch and deal with gas consequences at the end — only it’s not easier because tonight, he was so much calmer as we seemed to be responding to his needs in a timely manner. Or maybe we just imagined it?

It could really be that I wasn’t burping him enough. Ms. Dunstan says that the 5 o’clock “grizzlies” (a.k.a. Arsenic Hour) are babies crying from the gas of accumulated burps. After our experience tonight of getting so much air out of the boy over such a short time, I’m inclined to believe her.

Not that we hadn’t made progress on our own, getting better at guessing which problem to address at any given time (diaper, food, sleep, burp). But it’s interesting to try out this new tool. I’d been skeptical — don’t we all want to know what the baby wants and needs, to have some control? Are these systems (Dunstan, Happiest Baby) preying on our desire to do just that?

Sidebar: Not sure if Elimination Communication fits in this camp but I’ve been reading the messages on the yahoo group for weeks, read the book before Jonah was born, but had yet to take the leap. I’m not planning on letting him run naked through the house, but tonight when he peed into the air during a diaper-free moment on the changing table, I said “Sssssssssss,” which I am told, technically counts as a “catch.” Given how much this boy cries when his diaper is wet, it may benefit all of us for me to pursue this avenue of infant potty training a bit more seriously.

In any case, this seeming victory tonight came not a moment too soon as I’ve been quite blue the last two days what with all the crying and the where’s-my-6-weeks’-smile anyway???

I think maybe once this week he smiled in the direction of my ear. Scott thinks he may have gotten a smile during a diaper change this evening.

I’m waiting for that smile that’s going to light up his face like the sun. I’ve seen the shadow of it in his sleep smiles. I know it’s coming…