Also called
Diaper Tales
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Well, my life continues to suck. This year has been AWFUL! AWFUL!!! As you know from our last letter, Stealth Baby has another ear infection. Well, on Friday March 2 I notice that Precious keeps pulling at her ear. Now, of course, she doesn't have a fever or a runny nose and she's not being particularly fussy - but mother's instinct kicks in. So I call to leave a message for the doctor asking what I should do. Well, about 15 minutes later I decided I didn't CARE what the doctor thought, I just KNEW she was sick and that was that. Meanwhile this poor receptionist is hearing from me like 3 times a day every day. So I took all 3 kids in (I get a medal for Valor) and of course Precious has a massive ear infection in both ears. Sigh.
While I was there I thought it prudent to mention another little problem we've been having with my darling. See, Precious does not like to be wiped. Actually, she doesn't like her diaper changed at all - it's obvious she considers the whole thing degrading and a violation of her personal space. (Then again, she considers nearly everything a violation of her rights, somehow.) So, she holds it in. It might have even started back in January. Back on Jan 15 she had a horrible bowl movement. It was so bad I made a note of it on my calendar ~journal. She stood at the window crying and pushing and saying "It hurts, it hurts!" So I rushed to the store and bought like 20 dollars in baby laxatives. I gave her an enema then, and I have this stuff that is supposed to be a laxative, but doesn't seem to help her much. Anyway, things have gone more or less ok since then, but I've noticed some hard movements. Well, recently I noticed that she really didn't have movements at all, just these icky smelling squirts - nothing hard, more like water. SO I mentioned this to Bonnie. Yes, Precious was constipated. More than constipated, really - impacted! Now, how do you think one determines this? You guessed it - so Precious was violated again, except in a worse place then her ears. (Screaming, "All DONE! All DONE!!") It was late in the afternoon or Bonnie would have ordered us for an X-ray, she was that concerned. (It was Friday and Precious hadn't had a movement since Monday) I guess if you let this type of thing go long enough, it backs up into the intestine and gets infected? Then Bonnie decided it maybe would be best if she personally extracted some of the mass to make it easier later in the evening. Back off comes the diaper and poor Precious was violated for the 2nd time in 5 minutes. Unhappy baby. And the minute we started taking off her diaper she had a pretty good idea what was about to happen and fought like a spitfire. Unfortunately, everything was too impacted, so we had to hope and pray that the enema at home would work. Man, I never thought I'd be interested in poop in my life. When I thought about being a mom, this was NOT what I had in mind. So I had to give Precious an enema on Friday and then another one on Sat, and I have to give her mineral oil 3 times a day. Yuck! I think Mineral oil is basically liquid Vaseline. For something that is supposedly tasteless and odorless it certainly registers on Precious's radar screen. I mean, I've made Precious drink some really foul medicines in my day, but I can't get this down her. She'll spit it out via her nose if necessary, and days later we are still slipping on the floor where it landed. This stuff is impossible. Bonnie suggested (God I LOVE Bonnie!) that we get the frozen grape juice concentrate. So we give Precious a couple of frozen scoops of that with the teaspoon of mineral oil mixed in. So she's pooping, that's for sure. But she still HATES to be changed, so this may continue to be an ongoing problem. A funny tangent. So Precious is being looked at by Bonnie and protesting pretty loudly. She wants to know what's going on and she wants everything done to "Sissy Bear" (our name for one of her now-hideous but once adorable stuffed bears that she drags though the slime) first. So I'm smiling at my obstinate baby, even though technically I should be embarrassed at her fuss. So I say to Bonnie, "She's got a pretty strong sense of opinion." And Bonnie looks me in the eye and says, "That's what I like to see." So Bonnie and I had mother bonding moment. Oh yeah, she's not allowed to eat her 2 favorite foods. This child survives on bananas and grilled cheese sandwiches. Bananas (and applesauce too) have pectin in them, and cheese in binding. And Precious is a pain in the behind (JOKE!) and would rather stave than not eat what she wants. So she freaks out half the time when I offer her rolled oats for breakfast. No, she wants a bananas or some totally horrible, no-nutritional-value, high sugar, white flour, marshmallow cereal that Hubby buys 'for' the kids so he can eat it. She's been eating a lot of raisins - but the negative is she wants to feed herself. So she (a) spills and (b) sits on the floor with the open container. Neither of these things would bother me, but anything within 2 feet of the floor is in Stealth Baby's range. And Stealth Baby most definitely does not need to be eating anything to enhance his poop production. Raisins pretty much go right through him and seem to collect other debris along the way. So it will be Hubby's turn to change Stealth Baby and I'll hear this complaint wafting down the stairs, "Oh man! Mommy, did you let Precious have raisins again today!" Oh yeah, so I bought this fiber enhancer to spread on her peanut butter and jelly - I figure, if she wants to skip 2 of the 3 meals because they don't contain bananas or cheese, I'll give her extra fiber this way. (I think I'm so clever!) And then I catch her feeding her sandwich to Stealth Baby. Ack! Go re-read the sentence about being interested in poop. I can't believe my loving husband now calls home from work each day and asks, "Did she poop today?" and actually cares. Boy has this year sucked. And as long as Precious is hung-up about her bottom, we can't do anything about potty training. I keep trying to explain to her if she would poop in the potty she wouldn't be wiped! Well, just to make life interesting Hubby and I decided to follow the doctor's suggestion and keep Stealth Baby home from daycare for a week or two. Much easier said then done. A good friend out ours, CT, agreed to watch Stealth Baby on Monday. He said it was his offering for lent (isn't that funny.) SO Hubby took Stealth Baby on Wed (and all 3 kids too) and I stayed home on Wed. I am already 35 hours negative on sick leave, so I guess I'll be negative until next fall. At this rate, I'll be negative forever. A neighbor will watch Stealth Baby next Tues and I'm taking next Wed off. He'll go in on Monday. I hope this works. I don't know what I will do if he keeps getting sick. Funny thing. SO Hubby stayed home with the kids on Tuesday. We have to pay for our 3 days of daycare if we are there or not. So I told Hubby to do whatever he wanted, and he could take the kids in if he wanted since it was paid for. Well, he decided to be a hero and stayed home with all 3 of them! You've got to realize that this is the first time he's had all 3 kids for more than 15 minutes! And he had them all day! And just to really make me miserable - you should have seen the house when I got home! It was PERFECT!!! I mean, the place was immaculate and he had even made dinner! I was like, how in the world did you manage this? He had emptied the dishwasher and done all the dishes and he must have vacuumed! And he made dinner?! So now I'm stuck, because whenever I get irate because the house is destroyed and dinner is AWOL I always say, "You should try to stay home with 3 and see what you get done!" Well, he did. And he got a lot done. We were giggling about this this very morning - because I'm still in total shock. I just don't know how he did it. And Hubby's smirking at me and says, And now I get to hold it over you for the next 10 years.
------ The other day Kenny is over and we are all outside. It's getting dark out, but it was a nice night so we were taking advantage of it. Kenny and Pumpkin are on the swings, and Stealth Baby is in the baby swing. Precious and Daddy and running around the back yard too. So we start singing this wonderful song: (From Veggie Tales)
Oh God is bigger than the boogie man
So are you frightened? (Kenny screams) No not really!! So we are yelling and clapping our hands and carrying on like we were born in a barn. So finally it's dark so I go to walk Kenny home -- and our psycho neighbor is in his front lawn talking to a cop. So there we've been in the backyard singing religious songs. So we looked like a bunch of fools. Hubby and I still giggle about that.
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