Thursday, April 26, 2007

The fun of parenthood

"Good tahm uh day!" My (very French, raised in a ville nouvelle) husband to our daughter, right after a big, farty poo (hers, not his).

Me: "Oh, I love it when you talk southern. Where'd you learn that, anyway?"

Him: "I don't know. Is that southern?"

He might have gotten it from me, but I'm really more of a "Well, mah word!" kind of person. He's supposed to be speaking to her in French, but instead has apparently taken to helping me raise our very own little hillbilly outside of Paris. I love it. When I get a chance, I'll post photos of our DIY changing table and you'll see some more hillbilly right there.

We took Baby E. to an osteopath on Tuesday and we think it really helped. She is still somewhat gassy but seems to be digesting better and the screaming has really decreased. There's crying with newborns, and then there's the hold-her-breath, redfaced, clenched-fist, stiff-legged, top of her lungs, would not stop no matter what we did, full-on in misery screaming that was just alarming. I hope it doesn't come back. I also noticed that she would only turn her head to one side when she was in her bed, and the osteopath worked on the other side and now she sleeps on both. My husband wasn't sure at first if it was going to really work or if it was just hocus-pocus, but we're both big fans of osteopathy at the moment.

On Monday she also did something new -- marked her territory pretty darn well. She peed on our new IKEA chair, the Boppy, my freshly-laundered pair of pants (the ones that I can fit into -- rare these days), her softest blanket from Grandma as well as her bedding in less than 12 hours. I was wondering how parents would find the time to wash and disinfect everything that had been peed on if/when their baby had a leaky diaper, and now I know. They don't. Baby pee is now officially no big deal. I'm still wearing the peed-on pants and although I did wash the Boppy cover, everything else just was paper-toweled dry.

Okay, my free time is up. Have a good one.

7 comments:

Reb said...

Last week Suzanne ate cat litter, cat food, and what looked like a felin dingleberry. Yeah, your hygiene standards change when you're a parent.

Anonymous said...

Oh, my I love the hillbilly part might even get to call the little darling ellie mae, Just Kidding.
Glad she's doing better and may your nights be longer with sleep, peace and quite.

PutYourFlareOn said...

OH, the red in the face cry where they stop breathing, Our max does that sometimes. Scary when they stop breathing.

As for peeing on everything. I think our son has peed on every article of clothing I can fit into (not that many right now). You just say, 'eh, baby pee... no biggie'.

Jennifer said...

Yay for osteopaths! I saw one for awhile and he worked wonders.

Riana Lagarde said...

I love osteopaths. Glad that she is doing better.

LMAO at Reb, that is funny!

Anonymous said...

Elisabeth at EK directed me to your blog after I asked about you and baby. Congratulations! Browsing your page has been such a delight--I can identify with your experiences as an expat and mom to a bi-cultural baby. You know, my progeny has southern heritage, too. But I'm from the Carolinas so Alex is no hillbilly, thank you very much...he's a redneck. Well, half redneck.
Alison

Unknown said...

Wow, I can't believe you had that much time to post! Sounds like everything is going as good as it possibly can with a peeing and pooing newborn!