Ok, so I'm a little behind on the blogging end of things - its been a rough couple of weeks. Good thing we went away and got some R&R since its all gone to hell since we got back home. The routine has been completely disrupted and we have not had a good nights sleep in 2 weeks now. Not sure what happened, but somewhere between Punta Cana and Victoria a switch flipped and Mr. Sleepy decided to become "Mr. I'm-going-to-wake-up-every-couple-of-hours-and-drive-my-parents-over-the-deep-end". At first we thought it was because he had a bad cold and the congestion and coughing kept waking him up, but after the cold got better, the bad sleep gig continued. So we decided maybe it was time to introduce the solids (more about that later), but that did not seem to make a difference either. So the final consensus is that we are going though a "phase" and there is not much else we can do about it except wait it out and hope that eventually it will pass and we'll be back in la-la-land. In the meantime I'll continue to drink strong cups of Dominican coffee and cry my eyes out from sheer exhaustion.
Last week Wed Granny Ev and Aunty Caylin arrived back from the Dominican after almost a year of being away - must say it's nice to have them around for the extra babysitting. They are staying with us until they find a place so we have lots of help at the moment. As I said above we started the solids on Thurs last week beginning with every baby's favourite; good 'ol rice cereal. The first couple of teaspoons Liam made a weird expression, but all in all it was an instant hit. We hauled out the high chair and now feed him the cereal for breakfast and dinner. Someone should have seriously warned me how messy feeding a 6 month old can be. Of course all he wanted to do was grab the spoon and on route to the mouth would flick the fully loaded cereal right back at me covering both of us in sticky white stuff. I should have saran wrapped myself before attempting the whole feeding thing to begin with. Even with a bib and a face cloth the stuff gets everywhere - usually most of it doesn't make it into the mouth so we play Buzz Buzz spoon to get Liam to open his mouth so we can shovel in as much as possible before he spits half of it out and it runs down his chin. My type A personality just isn't good with this kind of mess but I'm fighting a losing battle and have resorted to cleaning him up only when we're done eating instead of obsessively compulsively wiping his face after every spoonful which only annoys him. Daddy has a natural knack for feeding & somehow manages to avoid getting cereal all over himself. Plus Liam seems to listen to him and has much more control of getting the spoon into his mouth. Bugger. A week after introducing the rice cereal we went to sweet potato - this was not a hit. After a few teaspoonfuls and a "yuck" face, Liam progressed to all out gagging. Three separate attempts later the gagging turned into crying and we have chalked a NO to sweet potato. This week we are on to carrots - we'll see how that goes.
Of course what's coming out of the other end now that we are officially on solids is worth an honourable mention. I was always warned that solid food poos were gross, but I had no idea how gross. It's worse than gross - it's downright "I need a puke bucket next to the diaper genie" disgusting. We went from somewhat-stinky-but-bearable to what-the-hell-is-that-smell-oh-my-god-I'm-going-to-barf. The poo literally turns dark green and is just plain nasty. The frequency of the poos decreases with solid foods as well and is replaced with equally nasty farts. Your bundle of joy goes from "ooooh he just did a toot" to "god my kid just reeks!". Can't wait till we start meat - I may have to invest in a gas mask.
Above the belt lets talk about breastfeeding and what it does to your boobs. Liam has always had a preference for the bigger left boob and eventually over the months I've been breastfeeding,the smaller right boob or "little boob" as I affectionately call it got a complex and started producing less and less milk. Well over the past couple of weeks little boob gave up the ghost and stopped producing milk altogether leaving the bigger boob to do all the work. That wouldn't be such a big deal except that the size difference between the twin peaks is huge. I'm about ready to run away and join the circus. Better start saving $5,000 for the boob doctor.......To make matters worse Liam likes to slap me hard while he's feeding - nothing like being beaten up by your 6 month old. We figure he's going to have a preference for lop sided breasts when he grows up. You know what they say about boys being attracted to women who remind them of their mothers....
So if it wasn't enough that I'm completely exhausted, I had to go and add an injury to the mix. On Wed morning (a day I should have had 2 cups of coffee instead of just one) I had just put Liam in his car seat as we were taking Ian to work when I slammed the car door and accidentally left my right pinky finger behind. After about a second I screamed blue bloody murder and after extracting my finger started bleeding all over the driveway. Ian ran inside to grab wet wipes (always handy) and a bag of frozen peas and 10 minutes later we arrived at the hospital emergency. Felt kind of stupid with my bleeding pinky, but I was in a lot of pain and fighting the urge to vomit everywhere. After being admitted and waiting for 2 hours Liam got hungry and I had the challenging task of whipping out a boob with one hand while holding the still bleeding pinky up in the air. Nurses were giving me an odd look as they walked by - must have looked pretty funny. An x-ray later it was revealed that I had a fracture and needed a splint for a couple of weeks. Lovely. Try changing a diaper at 3am in the dark with a broken finger - it's not fun. Plus Liam is totally facinated by the splint and keeps trying to grab it. Yes - it does hurt. The biggest bummer is that I cannot get the finger wet for 2 weeks and have to miss Liam's swimming lessons. Which brings us to the next "what's new in Liam's world" topic.
Last Thurs we started lessons at Crystal Pool around the corner for us. The group Liam is in is called Starfish and goes from 4 months to 18 months. He absolutely loves it! The group sings songs, plays games and basically gets the babies comfortable in water. Last week Ian dunked Liam under the water a couple of times - he blew into his face and when he took a breath in under he went. The first time he was shocked, but ok; the second time he freaked out and started bawling. We'll have to work on that one. I stood on the side and got trigger happy - photos attached of course.
Liam is in the "explore everything with my mouth" phase big time. If he can grab it, it goes in the yap. His teeth seems to be bugging him a lot now too and he constantly gums on his teething toys. I've been giving him baby Orajel to help with the pain and itching and wondered why he always made such a face when we initially put it on his gums. So I decided to pop some in my own mouth and see what it felt like. After the initial firey burn (explains the shocked expression) my whole mouth went completely numb. Unfortunately I forgot that I still had some Orajel on my finger and went to wipe some chocolate milk off the top of my lip. 5 seconds later my lips and mouth were numb and I started to drool. Serves me right for taste testing baby products.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Ian's boss sent us a gorgeous bouquet of flowers - unfortunately we put Liam's little chair next to the vase and he managed to yank the heads off a few of the daisies while we weren't looking. Ian eventually noticed the flower stash hidden underneath his legs. Thank goodness he didn't shove them in his mouth - can't have been all that appetizing to him!
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