Surviving the ER with a Baby

Let me begin by saying, you don't want to be in the ER with a baby. Not for the baby, not for you, not for your other kids, not for your spouse.
Generally speaking, you don't want to be in the ER, and you certainly don't want to take anyone extra with you if you can avoid it.
So first, I suggest keeping the number of someone who can watch your offspring, in case of emergency, handy.
Next, you're going to need to remember that even though the beds get clean sheets and pillow cases, the visitor chairs and floors do not get cleaned between patients and have all the germs of all the people who have used them. The nurses can't wash the soles of their shoes between patients, so the germs from the floor of the room with the coughing up blood patient get tracked onto the floor of the patient with the broken wrist. Therefore- KEEP BABY OFF THE FLOOR.
Does your kidlet like a stroller? Bring the stroller.  But also bring your most comfortable sling.  If you don't have time to grab it, call someone to have them bring it to you.  You're going to be tired as is, you certainly don't need to wear your arms out when babywearing is so much easier.

Don't put off nursing the baby because you're in a strange place.  If your wee one is nursing, take advantage of the fact that you can help calm and soothe your baby, and boost his/her immune system by nursing him.  The nurses and doctors aren't going to forget how to do their job if you're nursing, but if your wee one is hungry and screaming, they might just get distracted.
Toys.  If at all possible, only hand baby toys which can be sterilized before you leave, and if a toy hits the floor, it needs to go in a plastic bag and not be handed back to baby. Remember that bit about the floor? Nothing that touches the floor gets handed to baby. Ever.
Sippy cup hits the floor?  Bag it. Pacifier? Bag it.
Now here's where you get a break.  Most hospitals no longer have rules against cell phones in the ER.  If you've got a smart phone and an unlimited data plan, you can go to youtube.com and find great content like Celebrity Lullabies with Ricky Gervais

Don't have a smart phone with a data plan?  Do you have a MP3 player?  Baby just might be okay with listening to one of your earbuds, just remember to keep the volume down.

You can survive the ER with a baby in tow, just remember to keep baby off the floor and be prepared to be there for quite a while.
Goodluck, and may you never need this advice.

Baby enjoying the same rules applying to inpatient care rooms.

Do you have any tips on surviving the ER with a youngling?

Pink Saturday: Lazy Summer Days

As the summer heat rises, I've noticed that someone likes to sleep more and more.  Not that he's sleeping well in all this warmth, but definitely more willing to consider a nap.  I think that it's his summer getaway plan.  But I've noticed something. He has a newfound love of pillows.  I don't really know where it came from, other than perhaps watching other people laying down, but whether propped up on one and chillaxing, or curled up beside one, Mr. Babypants likes him some pillows.

Really likes him some pillows.

Loves curling up beside them, playing with them, sometimes burying his face in them.  Loves him his pillows.


But it makes me wonder.  When should one start introducing pillows to their wee one.  He's only 14 months old but seems to be coming down pretty heavily on he side of "Likes Pillows, Prefarably Pink."

Do you think he's big enough, and are you enjoying your pillows these lazy summer days?

For more Pink Saturday, head on over to Beverly's Pink Saturday, and have a great weekend with your pillows.

Wordless Wednesday: Now and Then

Now

Then

More Wordless Wednesday

One Year

Precisely one year ago.

You didn't have a name. You were 21.5 inches long. You weighed 8 pounds. You were sweet and tiny and had a smell that was unlike any other smell I'd ever smelled before. You had big curious eyes which so easily became sleepy eyes. You wanted to nurse and be held.

You have more names than a baby needs. You are 32 inches long. You weigh 25 pounds. You are sweet and big and have a smell that is unlike any other smell, even when your diaper is fine. You have big curious eyes, and hands, and knees for crawling, though you try to walk with one leg and drag the other beneath you for balance. You like to giggle, high five, wave hello and bye bye. You like to nurse, even when you're not being held. Even when it means crawling over and latching on yourself, but you still like to be held.

I love you.

Dear Baby in my Arms,

Dear Baby in my arms,
Yes, sweet you, nestled against my chest, nursing with drooping eyes and tired blinks. Sweet you who rests your hand on my cheek, dear baby:
Someday, not too long from now, you'll not only be crawling, but walking and running, jumping and dancing, playing and not so often sleeping in my arms. Someday, not too long from now, you'll be finished with nursing and will prefer your milkies in a cup.
Know that this very second, I want to capture this feeling of you breathing against my skin. The perfect symbiosis that has defined our relationship since first you started growing in my womb.
Dear baby in my arms, I cherish you. I am grateful for you each and every day, and when you are older I will still cherish you, and I will still be grateful each and every day. Even if someday I whisper to another baby in my arms that I love her or him, you are always going to be my only you.
I love you.
Love,
Mommy

Hotel Warning

Do not-

DO NOT EAT OFF THE FLOOR OF A HOTEL

I suppose this is technically a motel, but that just doesn't roll off the fingers quite so nicely.

Why, you might wonder?

Well aside from the obvious fact that they clean the carpets with noxious smelling grossness and gods alone know what was on the shoes of the last occupant... you don't know what happened on this floor.

For instance, this morning.

Snapdragon woke up all cute and cuddly, nursed and made happy faces at spouse and I.

Spouse was checking his email and I set Snapdragon down on the floor so I could go to the bathroom and then get dressed.

So what does Snapdragon do? He pulls off his diaper in one swift movement, crawls to the middle of the room, and proceeds to pee, and then crawl on.

Normally, he wakes up in a es baby snapping fitted with a nifty nappy snapping cover, but for this trip I decided to see how 3 GroBaby Shells and a set of biosoakers would do, and I haven't converted my shells to snap YET.

On the plus side, his diaper was still dry and I could put it back on him.

On the minus side- Snapdragon is apparently auditioning for a role as an unhousebroken puppy.

Do your wee ones wee on the floor?

I considered adding a picture, but wasn't sure which to add, the naked escape artist baby bottom, the wet spot on the carpet, or the diaper from which he escaped...

Natural Consequences

As any parent veteran parent will tell you, you can't protect your children from every possible danger, and though you try to redirect, minimize risks, and babyproof, not everything can be made 100% safe.

Even in an empty room with no electric outlets, there will still be the floor for baby to hit her head on when she falls, or perhaps some texture on the walls to scratch himself on when he tries to explore them.

In the end, babies are a curious lot, and that is as it should be.

They put things in their mouths. The touch things. They grab things, they pull things. They crawl out the door while you're turned away, and they open cupboard doors and get into drawers.

One of the advantages of traveling and staying in hotels is that they have very minimal clutter. This is a great relief to me, because it makes it easy to nearly childproof the room upon arrival.

I can walk into the room, put the garbage cans up on the counters and dressers, and barring a cord-tastrophe, the room is pretty much fine for an infant. (I'm not going to talk about the overpowering and disgusting cleaning chemicals, because that's an entirely different subject for a different morning.)

HOWEVER, I can't make any environment 100% baby proof, and my curious little boy is learning how to. How to open doors, how to crawl fast. How to take his diaper off. How to find mama. How to UN-baby-proof. How to open drawers.

This particular hotel room has long modern metal bar pulls on the drawers. They are particularly easy and tempting for a baby of a full 11 months. Upon realizing all he had to do was grab and apply the slightest pulling pressure and the drawer would open, he decided he'd found his favorite new toy. He smiled and laughed and clapped as he pushed the drawer closed and opened it again, learning all he could about the mechanics of drawers.

Seeing the logical outcome, I picked him up, moved him across the room and tried to distract him, and for a moment, he was distracted, but soon I heard the tell tale sound of the drawer opening again and a squeal of delight. So I picked him up and put him by different toys, but even faster he found his way back to that drawer. I tried propping a suitcase in front of it, but alas, he still managed to open it, and it was hard to walk through the room, having to step over he suitcase.

Well, as I'm sure you saw coming, he decided that the pll wasn't as much fun as playing with the drawer itself, and when he leaned in to close it, fingers still wrapped over the top edge, he learned that some toys bite, perfecting How-to make mom freak out. In my head, not out loud.

Opening the drawer and picking up my screaming baby, checking to see if his fingers were broken (only one bleeding) I was secretly grateful that he had figured out that was dangerous, that it hurt, and that he hadn't been hurt worse.

This morning, when setting him down again, I placed the larger suitcase in front of the drawer.

Well, he managed to displace it too, and again was at it with the drawer, very carefully opening and closing it with the pull. I thought, "huh, it seems he can learn a lesson the hard way." I thought too soon, as moments later he had shut a lonely finger in the drawer again, and was screaming for me to help him get loose from the mean biting drawer.

Eventually, he will learn to be more careful with drawers, but I'm afraid it's going to be a hard learning process, for him, and for me.

Have your children been learning anything the hard way lately? Please tell me I'm not the only one.

Crawltastrophe

Well, we're not to full out crawltastrophe just yet.... but we're getting there.

Today Snapdragon has gotten into and "played with" the following:

The diaper pail - lid and dirty diaper

The garbage can - used tissues and a cloth diapers instruction sheet

My shirt - he now seems to think he can crawl over to me when I'm down low and "open the fridge door."

My loom - the shuttle and wool yarn

Mongoosine's odds and ends box - an ATC and a magnifying glass

My mother in law's jewelry box - a button, three pair of earrings and a pin, all heart shaped (I hope that was all)

Diaper bag - my day planner

Bathroom organizer - multiple entire drawers and all of their contents. Yes, the drawers were on the floor- i think it was mostly sample sized creams. I had thought they were empty.

Laundry - Reds and Whites. This is why my whites might look a bit pink.

Laundry room - clothespin & a bottle of bleach. Why do we even HAVE a bottle of bleach?! No, he didn't get it open, but nonetheless, eek!

So, why didn't you tell me that boys get into everything?

Perhaps it's just decade induced forgetfulness, but I feel like Mongoosine didn't get into nearly so much at this age.

What did your kids get into today?

Hungry Hungry Hippos

No mushes for Snapdragon. No mushes, he says. 10 month old babies don't eat mushes, silly mommy, and certainly not 10.75 month old babies.

He likes carrots, and green beans, Cheerios and cheese. He likes spears of zucchini and bits of banana, but what else should he be eating?

He's my hungry hungry hippo, but he needs some variety in his diet! What finger foods are you giving your kidlets?

Scrub a Dub

Scrub a dub, a boy in a tub sink...

Yep, that's a bottle of toxic behind his shoulder, so no wonder he doesn't look exactly thrilled. Okay, truth? He's irritated because I took his cup away from him for a second. But yes, that's what I have been, on occasion, scrubbing my boy with. I just don't know what to use that doesn't contain nasty chemicals.

I have washed him with baking soda, I have washed him with water. I have washed him with way diluted cloth wipes solution by WeeEssentials (which is to date my favorite). But we have this ridiculous J&J crap, and I am not good at wasting things, and I keep going back to it.

So I'm asking, what are you using to wash your baby that is safe and leaves them smelling like something other than... well... butt? Because I'd like to replace the yellow peril with something a little less, well, evil.

Blue Monday: Blue Bear

Snapdragon likes his blue bear suit. He also likes his sister's zebra scarf. And the animals down on the farm. Did you knwo sheep had blue legs and ears? I didn't, but his toys have schooled me. So when you're out looking at the pretty baa-baa lambs, make sure they have blue legs, otherwise they're counterfeit I tell you. F-A-K-E fake. How do I know? Snapdragon says so, and he should know. He came complete with his own barnyard.

But seriously, do your older kids treat your younger kids like dress-up toys?

Worse yet, did you treat your siblings like that, or horror of horrors, did they treat you that way? Did it mess you up like Spouse jokes it will mess Snapdragon up, or, like the rest of us, did you turn out pretty okay despite the dress-up?

For more Blue Monday, round up your cows and herd them on over to Smiling Sally.

Wordless Wednesday: One Half of One Year

Wordless Wednesday

Mommy Panic

Sunday, the 15th of November marked an interesting milestone.

The daycare milestone.

Well, that's not accurate. The childcare at the gym milestone.

The leaving-my-baby-in-the-care-of-a-stranger-for-an-hour milestone.

Yeah.

My gym's childcare center will watch children between the ages of six months and ten years, for up to two hours daily so mom or dad can work out. In my case that's swimming, and now that Snapdragon is six months and ten days old, I decided it was more than necessary for me to be able to get back in shape without counting on daddy's babysitting convenience schedule, and that means the gym's childcare.

To make things even better, my mother in law decided to gift me his "membership" so that I can take him.

Well, I'm sure you can imagine my panic. I'm raising an exclusively breastfed baby who spends more time in a sling than in anything else, well, other than my arms. We co-sleep, I wear him in the shower, we are nearly never apart.

Deep breaths, right?

What if he gets hungry? My teats are in the pool! What if he needs his diaper changed? (like two hours in a fresh diaper is a make or break scenario?) I was worrying about things like his propensity to spit up and the fact that he doesn't sit up well. And that we don't let him sit/lay and cry. What if they did?

Turns out that my sweet Snapdragon isn't suffering from sufficient separation or stranger anxiety for me to have had cause to worry.

Maybe it was a good mood, maybe it was a sign of being well-adjusted, but Snapdragon was fine. There were no tears. He was cheerful.

Maybe there's something to this whole attachment parenting thing after all.

Or maybe the girl who works in the childcare center is simply really good with babies.

Pink Saturday: Real Men?

Real men dig pink. Real men dig pink while hangin' with the granny squares and sporting a Cupie hair style and rockin' out a purple diaper. Baby Dude has got hiz teknology and is ready to watch some serious PBS.

For more Pink Saturday, head over to How Sweet The Sound, where Beverly has some lovely pink and all the pink links.

What is this food of which you speak?

Snapdragon is 24 weeks old today. If we used a lunar calendar, tha'd be six months.
But we don't, and it isn't.

In case you missed it, the current reccomendation is to wait until at least six months before introducing solids. There are a lot of good reasons. The two that stay foremost in my mind are 1. To prevent/reduce likelyhood of developing allergies. 2. To wait til the baby is developmentally ready for foods.
Well, Snapdragon *wants* food. He strains against his highchair strap, stretching his neck and arms, trying to get our food. He mimics our behavior at dinner time. He wants the food. He very nearly got ahold of Spouse's banana this morning.
But I'm supposed to put it off for another 16 days, by the calendar.
16 days.
What difference can this two weeks and two days possibly make?
The paranoid part of me that won't eat peanut butter because dr.s in some countries say the protien to which people are allergic passes directly into breastmilk, that part saus "but what if I expose him to foods 16 days too early and he develops an allergy?
Then part of me sees his frustration at not being able to eat with the rest of us, and I feel like he's developmentally begging for a chance to taste something other than mama-milk.
So frustrating.

Am I nuts here? Is it too soon?
When did you start solids with your little one? Any regrets?

Wordless Wednesday: Keep Your Hands and Feet Inside the Ride at All Times (or) Another Reason to Cosleep

More Wordless Wednesday

A Swingin' Time

Snapdragon loves his swing.
He loves his swing a lot.
When first we received his Fischer-Price My Little Lamb papasan cradle swing, I did a little research. Here's what the customer reviews said. Basically, cute, sweet, but the seat tilts a little, and that's a bit, well, weird.
Because I had read this little seat tilting factoid, I was not surprised to find that the seat, indeed, tilted a tiny bit to the right. Maybe a couple degrees, it tilted. No big deal. I figured, its a tiny thing, no one has reported any problems that I've read, and of course I'll use the seatbelt.
Well, I didn't always use the seatbelt, but since he's started being more mobile, I always always buckle the seat belt. I haven't even attached the play tray more than twice because it tempts me to not buckle the seatbelt.
Well, on Wednesday I needed to get the dishes done so we could head to my mom's to do laundry, so I set him down, buckled him in and quickly stepped out to the kitchen. Moments after finishing the dishes I heard a sudden shrill cry. Something about it was different than what I was accustomed to hearing, so I set down what I was holding and immediately stepped back into the room where Snapdragon was wailing.
What did I find? A baby. My baby. My red faced, back arched like a trapeze act, screaming his lungs out, dangling from his seatbelt, upsidedown off the side of his swing baby.
That's right. Snapdragon tipped right out of the side.

No, I didn't get a picture, I grabbed him, not the camera.
Bye bye swing.

Yes, he's fine. He was upsidedown a matter of seconds, but I was fairly traumatized.
So, if you have a papasan/ctadle stule swing, check it to be sure there is no tilt to the seat. Your baby will appreciate it.

Wordless Wednesday: Why Did You Let Sister Play With My Hair?

For More Wordless Wednesday, check out Worldless Wednesday.com, or 5 Minutes for Mom.

Wordless Wednesday: Hangin' Around

Jump on over for mroe Wordless Wednesday.

Blue Monday: The Baby Blues

Woke up this morning, want something to eat- but the lady who feeds me isn't acting very sweet, I got the blues. I got the Baby Blues.

Oh, I got the blues, the baby baby blues.

The B-A-B-Y B-L-U-E-S

Spellin' it don't make me feel it no less, Blues.

Next thing I know, my fluffy needs changed,

But that woman who changes me is actin' so DERANGED!

I got the blues. I got the Baby Blues.

I'm Blue.

I got the Baby Blues.

B-A-B-Y B-L-U-E-S

Spellin' it really don't make it no less, Blues.

This afternoon, I was feelin' just fine,

Then that nutty lady tells me it's time for TUMMY TIME!

I got the Blues, I got the Baby Blues.

I got the Blues, the not-so-sky blue Baby Blues.

B-A-B-Y B-L-U-E-S

Oh I'm tellin' you spellin' don't make it no less, Blues.

Heard those dreaded words,

"We're going outside"

But all that sunshine and pollen just makes me wanna go and hide!

I got the Blues, I got the Baby Blues.

So so so Blue, I got the Baby Blues.

I got the B-A-B-Y B-L-U-E-S

If only spellin' helped, but again I digress, Blues.

My big sister, she's playin' a pest,

All this hoppin' and singin' has got me so distressed!

I got the Blues. I got the Baby Blues,

B-A-B-Y Blues, I got the Baby Blues

I'd spell it again, but I'm tellin' you true,

Spellin' ain't better for me or for you, Blues.

For More Blue Monday, follow the bird.