My best friend is getting divorced and is back in the dating game after a pretty long marriage. We were chatting and I was dispensing some (sought) advice, being a fairly recent divorcee myself.
I introduced her to KY and brought her a tube of it so that she can find it easily in a drug store.
When hubby got home, my friend and I were drinking tea, the KY tube sitting on the kitchen table between us.
You should have seen his face when he asked what on earth had we been doing before he came 
Just got a call from my gyno’s office – she’s got stitches in her hand and is not examining anyone. My post-natal appointment was scheduled for today. Now they rescheduled it to… April 20th. I guess I am not going to wait until then for her okay and go ahead and DTD. Seriously, it’s been long enough already!
Although I am still spotting. Which is VERY annoying. Just a little bit – but still, annoying.
I read that with the bleeding there is a high risk of infection but spotting is not bleeding, right?
Now, the other question is: should we use birth control? I mean, I never managed to get pregnant on my own before. I rarely ovulated, for that matter. But having another baby right now isn’t probably in the plans.
Hmmm. Tough decision.
For the past few days Timothy’s breathing has been getting more and more noisy. It was obvious he’s got mucus in his throat. Especially after a long period on his back – like after sleeping – he would sound all bubbly in his throat and wheezy.
Today I got really concerned – he was crying and obviously had difficulties breathing.
Since there was no fever involved, instead of going to the emergency, we called a friend (thank God my hubby’s best friend is a doctor!).
Mucus in his throat? Occasional cough? Occasional retching noises?
Turns out he has a running nose, but because he spends his time on his back, all the mucus runs down to his throat and thickens there enough to create a mucus plug. Babies as small as Timothy cannot cough it up, and if mucus gets too thick – can’t swallow it, either.
The cure?
1. Saline drops + nose-cleaning bulb
2. Giving an ounce of water in the morning: milk doesn’t help clearing the mucus
I gave him the saline drops and right away a huuuUUUuuuge boogie made appearance out of his nostril. He was screaming at the top of his lungs as I was using the bulb on him. But it looks like his breathing got a bit easier.
Will keep doing this and see how it goes.
Poor Timothy, I feel so bad for him, so helpless against the ugly mucus 
Timothy is 7 weeks. It feels like he’s been with us for MONTHS. I cannot believe it’s been only 7 weeks – and so much has changed already.
You know that old ABBA’s song – slipping through my fingers all the time? This is exactly how I feel.
I now look at Timothy and feel so sad that I am not going to EVER see those frantic moves he used to do in his first couple of weeks… I would bring him to the breast and he would keep turning his head to the right! to the left! to the right! to the left! suck his mitten! At times it took 4 arms to get him to eat – me holding his head and my breast, someone else (hubby or sis) holding his hands. He’s so much more… aware now of his surroundings now. He sees the breast. He knows where to latch on.he’s growing so fast.
He used to wear those mitten because I couldn’t, just couldn’t cut his nails. They are so tiny! And at times we called him boxer – for that’s what he looked like, in diapers and mittens. So funny…
The first 3 weeks he spent sitting in his bouncer under the table where I have baskets with fruits and vegetables. Why there? Because the pot lights irritated him, so we placed the bouncer under the table to block the light. And he sat there, with bananas and eggplants – drifting to sleep and back to wakefulness.
Oh, and the time we went for the pediatrician appointment and I didn’t even think to bring clean diapers? I was a very new mom. They gave us a sample diaper. The thing is, it was size zero. They looked like speedo on Timothy, it was so funny 
Or the first few times we went for a walk? He screamed bloody murder from the moment we put the hat on, but as soon as the stroller was out the doors – it was as if someone turned the sound off.
Him quietly enjoying his first bath… his first smile… the first time he managed to touch the rattle hanging in front of him in his bouncer…
Slipping through my fingers all the time…
So we started putting Timothy to bed at 10:10 pm yesterday. He was sleepy and fed reaaaaaaally slow, so we were done at about 11 pm and both went to bed. I woke up at 6 am with my breasts rock hard – and he was STILL SLEEPING!!!
After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to wake him up. He had an explosive poop at some point during the night, so I had to change his diaper AND his sleeper. I fed him (the whole feeding + changing thing took about 30 minutes) and then brought him over to my hubby and went back to sleep. Alone in the room. With a closed door, with the white noise from humidifier on, with the blinds closed. And I slept for another 2.5 hours until 9 am, uninterrupted.
Hubby took care of Timothy, fed him my frozen breast milk…
After I woke up, I pumped – and then took a luxurious shower, which included shaving, and scrubbing the back.
And I was able to COOK breakfast. Not just throw cereal in a bowl of milk – I made porridge. Cream of wheat, with raisins, milk and sugar. And hubby made coffee.
Ahhhh, total bliss. I am a new person! So rejuvenated
You won’t be able to understand what I am reading to him – but still, his face is priceless. In fact, if you turn the sound off, it looks like he’s laughing out loud 
Plan for tonight: I wake up to feed Timothy at night (usually around 4-5 am) and hand him off to hubby. Then I sleep in for as long as I can and hubby looks after Timothy and feeds him my frozen breast milk. Soooo looking forward to it. I just hope I don’t wake up on my own at 7 am out of habit…
There are a lot of debates – both on and off line – on parenting philosophy. Which made me think – what’s mine?
[Let me preface my musings by saying that I am not judging any other parenting philosophies... I am merely trying to formulate what is mine - and why it works for me)]
Attachment parenting is most definitely not my thing. In part, because I have never seen it up-close, so it feels weird and foreign to me. All babies I know were NOT raised through AP and they turned out just fine. But then it depends on the baby, too – I guess. Preemies, I bet, simply NEED this type of parenting. But that’s just a guess.
Anyway.
While I was pregnant, my main focus was on staying calm. My deep belief is that if I am calm – the baby is calm, too. And the pregnancy period is the foundation of the baby’s temperament. So I focused on staying calm. I watched positive movies (e.g. romantic comedies and cartoons), I read positive (or at least not negative/bloody) books. I refused to get too worked up about things, relationships, etc. I stayed calm. (Well, thankfully, my pregnancy was smooth and there were no real reasons to worry).
And Timothy, indeed, was born a big and calm baby. He has great appetite. He eats well, he sleeps well, he interacts well. He has his fussy moments, but all in all – he’s calm.
And I am still focusing on staying calm myself. I HAVE seen how my mood affects him, so I keep it under control.
What keeps me calm? Having “me” time. I don’t get worked up about dust bunnies under the bed in master bedroom (Timothy and I sleep in his bedroom). I would rather sleep or read or relax. I pick my priorities.
I don’t spend every waking minute with Timothy. We play and talk and sing. I read him books. But he also spends plenty of time on his own, in the playpen or bouncer. And I don’t think spending every minute with him will do much good to either one of us. He certainly gets tired of me (turns his head away, starts crying) – and I get tired, too. I need time to recharge my batteries.
So far, Timothy is a very reasonable baby – and I treat him as such. He goes to bed without complaints 95% of the time. Well, most of the time because he falls asleep on the boob, but even when not – he lies quietly until he actually does fall asleep. He plays on his own quite happily for short periods of time.
And I have time to take a shower, or cook, or just put my feet up and read. Happily.
And then I am happy and content for Timothy and for hubby. How do they say? Happier wife, happier life? I don’t yell at hubby because I am tired. I don’t demand he takes Timothy away from me because I’ve spent the day with him. And DH is actually happy to play with Timothy, because Timothy is quite calm and happy, too. And I am happy to cook dinner for us while they play.
That’s my philosophy – to keep EVERYONE in the family happy. Not focusing on Timothy 100% of the time – but focusing on all of us. Cooking dinners for hubby. Taking breathing breaks for me. Reading and cooing to Timothy. I believe that’s the way it should be. There are too many families that fall apart because their kids become centres of everything – and they forget about each other and about themselves. One day they wake up and realize they became strangers to each other.
I think providing happy and loving parents for Timothy is just as important as playing with him and teaching him to raise his head. He will raise his head anyway, you know (that’s just an example… Timothy’s been raising his head since birth).
I don’t want my family to fall apart. I already had one marriage fall apart. So I will keep working on preserving the healthy balance.
Yesterday, I took a quiz on how to decode crying.
While I read some articles on this topic before, taking the quiz, trying to find the right answer, and then reading the correct answers made a deeper impact on me.
Right after taking the quiz, Timothy woke up with a sudden piercing cry. I knew what to do – I grabbed and burped him
