Beyond the Odyssey

So far, the soundtrack to the homecoming is the new CD by Finn's uncle Steve. It's in heavy rotation in the McCauley household. Finn is lucky to be landing into the middle of a very talented family of musicians, on both sides. His father is a singer/songwriter/guitar player, his aunt and uncle are classical musicians, and most everyone has some "game" when it comes to music. We hope to bring him up with a healthy love for the arts; Pete hopes to bring him up as a fiddle player.

Mad Baby

There's nothing like a screaming baby to make you feel like a failure. I was in a state absolute helpless desperation, watching him cry and cry, unable to find the key to his distress. Pete had rehearsal with the band tonight, so Finn and I were on our own. No big deal. Except that he spent almost the entire time close to inconsolable. Red, shaking, screaming.

Babies cry. I know this. I have even had some experience with it, and I remember how frustrating it is. But now, that baby is mine, plus he's only been home a week, he's on an apnea monitor, and he's a preemie. Everything he does can be cause for worry, if it's out of the ordinary, and we don't even know what ordinary is. This was not ordinary, for him, during this past week.

Was he too hot? Too hungry? In pain? He couldn't give me specifics, just a white hot blur of noise to tell me that something was a bit off. He had been sleeping; he slept for almost four hours. I knew he would be hungry when he woke up. The first thing is always to change his diaper, which I did. Then, to the boob, first with no shield to see what he will do. About half the time now, he'll take it. Nothing doing this time, so I got the nipple hat. He was about six minutes into it before the screaming started again, and it went like this for an hour. On the boob, off the boob screaming. On the boob, off the boob screaming. Check the diaper. On the boob. Repeat. Finally, I gave him a bottle, which he took greedily, then had a wet diaper, a little more time on the boob, another wet diaper, then screaming. He finally calmed down with a little on the shoulder bouncing, had a pretty good boob session, and now he's sleeping on Pete, and I am having a Guinness.

I suppose it would have been mildly amusing to look in the window and see a small crying baby on the floor, and a big crying woman huddled over him, trying to remain calm while holding a pacifier into the gaping maw of his turmoil. All the education, self possession, capability, and big talk just shivers to bits in the face of such raw emotion.

and poop

Yeah, we're all a little tired.
But some of us are pooping like a champ.

I can't remember if I wrote about this already, and if I have, tough luck because I am not going back to check. Little Man had not pooped since Sunday evening, the night before we took him home, and by his pediatrician appointment on Wednesday morning, we were worried. No one told us that he might not poop every day, and it's ok if he doesn't. They were so intimately involved with his every-three-hour input/output schedule, that it made us a little paranoid. Is he eating enough? Is he peeing enough? Is he pooping enough? All important things, but to only focus on time spent breastfeeding or how many milliliters taken ("bottling. He bottled well. Bleh), or how pee or poop-filled his diaper can make a little not fun at parties, as well as too focused on the purely biological instead of paying attention to "Hey, how's they baby doing?"

Since Wednesday, he has had one giant green poop, then one pretty big, a little less green poop, and now he's pooping the color of the discontinued M&M, just like he should be, and he's doing it rather regularly. We got all that nasty powdered gunk out of him, and it's smooth sailing... if you call riding the choppy waves of gas smooth.

All this peeing and pooping led to the first load of diaper washing, which was very exciting. It has always been my intention to cloth diaper, and though many sage moms have listened to me with the condescending "Oh, yes, we all think that, dearie, just wait..." look on their faces, I really meant it. They sent us home with the crappy crinkly Pampers that don't feel wet unless they are saturated to monsoon levels, and we used them up; they were going to be thrown away one way or another. We have also used a few 7th Generation chlorine-free disposables while we got our shit together, but now he's been in cloth for the most part. I love them. You have to change them more often, which is good, and instead of going into a garbage can, they go into a kitty litter pail, which is appropriate. Plus, it's just fun to say "Preemie Prefold."

I got all gussied up today and ran an errand. Yes, I had a bath, changed my clothes, and went to buy some Guinness seven blocks away from our house. It was quite exciting.

please don't eat the...

If your baby is fussy, it could be your diet.
Remember being pregnant, and all the stuff you could not do? Well, it's back! Except it's worse.

Finn's not really fussy. He's gassy and farty, and he fusses sometimes, but he's not what I would call a "fussy baby." Just in case, though, I was wondering what I could change in my diet to help him out. Not much, just a few things, like chocolate, cinnamon, chiles, garlic, curry, citrus and pineapple, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, bell peppers, cucumbers, kiwi, strawberries, cheese, milk, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese, ice cream, the will to live, tomatoes, eggs, peanuts, peanut butter, corn, wheat, soy, apples, and bananas.

I think it might be easier and shorter to list all the things you can eat.

That's me, over in the corner, weighing nine pounds and eating oatmeal and meat.

I suppose it's good news for the carnivores; the meat feast is ON! But it's summer. It's harvest time in the northland, and our CSA keeps delivering the most lovely boxes of veggies. Of course, we have not been home all summer, and I forget to eat, so we're making a lot of super lovely compost, but now that I am home, I'm eating those veggies, fussy baby or not. It's either that, or the baby will be looking mighty tasty.

I figure I am damned if I do, damned if I don't. If he's fussy, we're all sad. If I am starved and deprived of dairy, we're all sad.

shield me from harm?

If you had said the words "nipple shield" to me four months ago, I may have ducked and protected; I may have thought that you were referring to some unknown super power belonging to Wonder Woman and her island-dwelling amazon counterparts; or I may have said "No thanks, they're fine." I would not have thought that, four months later, my boob would be wearing a little silicone hat every time I wanted to attach my baby to it.

That's what it is, though, and they told me at the hospital that I needed it. They went ahead and got one without asking, and when they handed it to me or, rather, put it on me like they were struggling to put a turtleneck on a cat, I just acquiesced because they were exhausting me with comments like "Insurance won't let him stay here if the only reason is that he won't take the breast."

We'd been trying for all of two feedings. Way to be patient. I was not feeling frustrated or anxious. I figured it would take him time to get over the pacifier.

Here they were pushing the bottle and the shield all because, they said, they were just trying to get him home, and didn't we want him home? Insinuation: we are selfish and just want things our way instead of getting our baby out of the hospital.

So here I am, typing with one hand while Finn sleeps on my chest, fresh from only his second successful feed without the neeple hat. I'm going to see a lactation specialist at his pediatric clinic to get him off the crutch, and in the meantime, if he is calmly hungry, I offer him naked boob to see if he will take it.

My nipples do not need accessories.

At least not in this instance.