Things are looking up. Sam seems to have decided against the trendy but ultimately self-defeating colicky disposition and has been in much better spirits. This is something we’ve worked at pretty hard, though. Geralyn cut back on her vitamins a bit in the hopes that the iron in them had been upsetting Sam’s stomach. We’ve also been tracking Ger’s diet in our baby journal, which you can see here.
The journal is a habit we started while still at the hospital and just never dropped. In addition to her diet, Geralyn tracks Sam’s feeding times (as well as left or right you-know-what) and diaper status. She also keeps notes from doctor visits and the new mother’s support group. It’ll make quite a heirloom someday, but I imagine we should drop the habit before Sam’s old enough to read it herself.
The cool thing about this past week has been that Sam is starting to interact with us more, even if it’s just a little. She seems better able to focus on us when we talk to her, and she has more periods where she’s awake and active, but not fussy. There have been a few times we think she may have smiled at us, but we still can’t rule out gas. I’m planning a double-blind, random assignment experimental design to decide once and for all if she keeps this up.
Smiling is all good, but the big news this week has really been that this has been the first weekend that we really took Sam out in public. We went out to lunch with us at Chipotle (one of my favorites) and then on a shopping spree at Babies R Us. She did just fine during that jaunt, sleeping most of the time and not getting too excited about all the things we were buying for her.
Things turned south, however, when we later tried to take her for a walk down to the shops and park near our house. Shortly after we stopped for a coffee Sam decided that things were going too smoothly and started bawling. In our haste to clear out of there we sprinkled her hat with lukewarm latte, which didn’t help. I was just afraid some of it would get in her mouth and she’d be wired for a week. But she got home and calmed down just fine. We plan on tempting fate and going for another walk today.
Here’s the pictures for this week:
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Finally, this week’s Baby Product We Couldn’t Live Without is the Fisher-Price Kick & Play Bouncer. Samantha loves this thing. She’s too young to play with the lights or sounds, but the bouncer’s vibrations really keep her calm. I can also put it on the floor, sit in a chair, and gently bounce the frame with my foot. If she’s anywhere near tired, this will eventually put her to sleep.
I kept a journal like that for months after Ana was born. It was really helpful at doctor’s visits when they asked stuff like “how much is she eating each day?” and “how many wet diapers does she have each day?” and stuff like that.
Sam’s quite the cutie! It sounds like you’re really enjoying parenthood.
Nice to know someone is as anal a mom as me. 🙂 It is very helpful for Dr’s visits. And writing down everything I eat somehow does help me exercise a little more self control and hopefully take off that pregnancy weight a little more quickly. I’m not sure how I feel about it being up on the world wide web, though. 🙂 Now if I could only find time to make it to the gym…
Believe me, your diet is good. Whole wheat breads, fruit, lean meats, skim milk, fruit juice, etc. I’d need a page just to track all the diet coke I drink. 🙂
LOL! Me too – well, Diet Cherry Coke!
It sounds like you’re keeping up a good diet, Geralyn – that’s fantastic! I lost about ten pounds pretty quickly after I had the baby, but then put on thirty in the next six months stress-eating – she started getting sick at 2 months, and between the ear infections, RSV (had to be hospitalized for that one), asthma, and trying to keep up with a PhD program, I shoveled a lot of chocolate into my face. I wasn’t able to breast-feed, though – if I’d been able to I would’ve watched what I ate more.