Fuss

Lyla looks like Elvis in this picture. Or Dracula. Perhaps Lylacula.

One thing Julie and I are working through is that I'm pretty much worthless once I've hit the bed. I'm a much deeper sleeper than she is, so whenever Lyla shoves the binky (pacifier) from her mouth and begins to fuss, Julie's the one who notices. When this goes on for two hours, I don't earn any husband points.

When I do stir, I'm an idiot. We have a stuffed monkey in the bed, named Monkey, that Julie used during pregnancy to support whatever part of her needed supporting. The other night, according to Julie, when she stood up to feed Lyla, I said, "I have her right here."

The room was dark, so Julie immediately thought, "You have her in the bed?!" But it wasn't Lyla. It was Monkey.

My nighttime ramblings used to be a source of humor for us. In earlier days, Julie would return to bed after going to the bathroom or something, have a short conversation with me, laugh her head off, and fall back asleep.

But in the middle of last night, Julie asked me to change Lyla to prepare her for a feeding. "Sure!" I said, then promptly fell back asleep.

I did sort of come to my senses a moment later. I shuffled over to the changing table and said, "Here, I'll change her. You go back to bed. Go back to bed, homey, I mean honey." Of course, in my stupor I had forgotten that Julie wasn't just up to change her, but to feed her. Idiot!

This morning we had a discussion about ways that I might be more helpful at night.

I suggested to her, "You have to make me repeat whatever you want me to do."

"Or I could smack you in the face."

"Or you could smack me in the face."

Grand

Lyla leads a difficult life. She's like a movie star, everyone taking her picture and wanting to see her and get close to her. She needs handlers, too, people who tend to her and manage her every move.

Time to introduce the grandparents.


This is Grandma Julie, who wants to be called Grammy. We'll see about that. Grandma Julie drives home from work past our house and is also off on Fridays. I think we'll be seeing a lot of Grandma/Grammy Julie.


Here's Grandpa Tom. At Tom and Julie's house last night, he held Lyla 80% of the time. He is very calm, which is why she was as well.


Grandpa John is a professional photographer. I think Lyla will be his new muse.


And here is Grandma Jackie, who stayed with us from Sunday through Friday. The only way to have a baby is to have a grandma stay at your house for a few days. She cooked, cleaned, held Lyla, and kept us sane.


Lyla also has great-grandparents. This is Great-Grandma Alice, also known as Grandpa Tom's mother. She gave us the baptismal gown that was first worn in the late 1800s, by Lyla's Great-Great-Grandpa Harry. Interestingly, Lyla's Great-Grandpa, also named Harry, will baptize her in it in late-December. So she will be baptized by my grandfather, whose own father was the first to be baptized in the gown she will wear. Now that's history. Hopefully she won't poop all over it.

Pacified

We took Lyla out of the house for the first time. She had her first pediatrician visit and came out of it nearly unscathed, except for the bandage on her right foot.

She's a bit yellow, you see, and as a precaution they drew a little blood to ensure that she's not too yellow. The way I understand it, babies need more oxygen in the womb, and that oxygen is carried by red blood cells. Once the baby is born and those extra red blood cells aren't needed, they die, and bilirubin helps break them down in the liver. Bilirubin is, drumroll please, yellow.

Winter babies sometimes struggle with jaundice due to relative lack of sunshine. Long before levels of bilirubin become dangerous, doctors will prescribe some sort of sunlamp treatment. Lyla is nowhere near that point yet but had the blood drawn because, as you might imagine, pediatricians like to err on the side of caution.

Pricking that foot pissed off Lyla something fierce. I tried to match her energy level when consoling her and calmed as she calmed. Continuing this strategy will hopefully prompt the emotion part of Lyla's prefrontal cortex to develop healthily. It's a lot of psychological mumbo-jumbo that I only sort of pretend to understand. Suffice it to say that there's research to support that emotionally neglected babies (such as the Romanian orphans in the study) had way more emotional problems when they got older. Duh. But it's crazy to think that a study basically proved that you shouldn't just let your baby cry.

Last night Lyla had another grand fuss-fest around 1:00 AM. It's like she won't calm down when it's our bedtime. A breakthrough came at 2:00 AM, when downstairs I stuck my pinky in her mouth. Her mother was drained, you see, literally, and I wanted to see if Lyla simply wanted to suck on something. And voila! Happy baby! So after a quick middle-of-the-night Google search, we determined that putting Lyla to bed with a pacifier would not cause her to deal drugs in kindergarten.

The pros to pacifier use at night:

- A 2005 study found that it decreased SIDS.
- Babies in general, and Lyla especially, like to suck.
- It helps Mom and Dad sleep and thus be better parents in the morning.

The cons:

- Some parents use the pacifier as a crutch and fail to adequately comfort their baby, opting instead to always shove in the Nuk.
- Nipple confusion.
- Who are we kidding? It got Lyla to go to sleep!

A word about nipple confusion. Experts recommend no pacifier until breastfeeding is established, usually occurring after about a month. Lyla was one week old yesterday. So are we bad parents? I doubt it. She's a good little eater. She poops frequently, and with artistic flair. And when midnight hits, she's fussier than Elton John at Old Country Buffet. No brainer: if the pacifier pacifies, use it.

Giving

Lyla likes herself a bath, apparently. Maybe we'll use the bath as a relaxation strategy for nighttime, which up to this point she's decided is cry-until-you-hold-me time. This morning we shampooed her hair, washed her hands, and used just warm water on everything else.

But enough about cleanliness. Twice Julie has experienced the phenomenon of the mid-diaper-change poo. It's a commendable feat of timing, really, for Lyla to unleash at the precise moment when her mother is most vulnerable. It's also a feat of timing that this hasn't happened during Daddy's diaper changes. Cheers, Lyla! Keep it up, lady. Poop all over Mom, but hold your shit when it's Dad's turn.

As my friend with her own baby told me, "There's nothing quite like the feeling of warm poo hitting your hand."

When you're holding Lyla and she poos, it's a strange sound. I've been trying to come up with the perfect onomatopoeia (and that's the correct spelling, in case you were wondering) to capture Lyla's bootie producing a biohazard. So far the best I can do is squittely-splut.

Here is Lyla post-bath.


I think she'll sleep all day in that hood and then be wide awake tonight. It's fine. Today is Thanksgiving. I've always had a tendency to take my life for granted; I've even been guilty of giving myself credit for things that I probably shouldn't. Thanksgiving has been more about food and conversation than about actually reflecting and giving thanks. Not so much this year.

Pump

Lyla has fallen asleep in a lot of arms these last few days. I think this is why when we put her in the bassinet, she objects. "Excuse me, Mother? Could I be held, please, instead of sleeping in this box?"

She's exaggerating; it's not really a box. I can sort of understand her reasoning, though. I mean, which would you prefer? On the one hand you have the warm contours of someone's arms and torso. On the other hand you have a bassinet, or in her words, a box.

Trouble is, you can't tell if she's screaming because she wants out or because she's hungry. And when you're a new mother, you need the three hours between feedings to heal. What happens when it's 1:00 in the morning, you breastfed at 12:30, and your daughter is shrieking like a baboon in heat? Last night, my stance on the issue was that Lyla was not in fact hungry, but lonely. At 1:30 I asserted my position by taking her from her mother's arms, sending the now baby-less mother to bed, and carrying the baby downstairs.

For a short while, Lyla cried. Then I lay down on the couch and put her on my chest like a little bug. I slowed my breathing. Time passed, and she stopped crying. Suddenly I looked at the clock, and it was 4:00. We had fallen asleep.

Now we have the Medela Pump-In-Style breast pump, because hey, if you're gonna pump, you damn well better do it in style. Hopefully this will allow the breasts more off-the-clock time. It'll also allow Dad to horn in on this whole feeding business.

We have a smart kid, though. Not even a week old and she's discovered that sleeping, like thinking, is best done outside the box.

Girls

Here Julie is helping Lyla practice "tummy time," a sickeningly cute baby phrase that's right up there with "poopy bottom" and "snuggle muffin" in terms of making you nauseated when you say it. Tummy time helps newborns build the muscles they'll need to support their own heads and eventually crawl.

We're trying to keep Lyla awake during the day so she'll sleep more at night. We've discovered that she's a hungry, hungry girl at night, sometimes feeding multiple times within an hour. And she hasn't quite mastered the concept of what lactates and what doesn't. It's kind of hilarious to watch her suckle her hand and get frustrated when no milk comes out of it.

Yesterday I picked up the dogs from boarding. Immediately they knew something was up. I brought them inside while Julie was feeding Lyla upstairs, and I got them calm even though Julie's mom is here and they had tail-wagging fits when they saw her. Then I went upstairs to change Lyla, and Julie came down. Since I am the alpha in the house, we decided that it made sense for me to bring Lyla down. That way if the dogs were obnoxious, I could snarl at them without them thinking much of it.


All in all, they found Lyla very interesting indeed. Daisy, above, was pretty low-key. Tulip, below, growled a little.


As a small dog, she has a Napoleon complex, but she's as harmless as they come. They're both docile dogs. I suspect before long they will adopt Lyla as their own and protect her from whatever threats (squirrels, mailmen, each other) they perceive.

Tulip settled down quickly, even for her, and stopped caring that someone new was in the house.


And Daisy...well, Daisy is dumber than a sandbox. No need to worry about her.


Bottom line, it's fun to have all my girls here together.

Duty

Newborns are nocturnal, while their parents are not. Last night, Lyla demanded to suckle from the jugs four times. And, as a five-day-old, she hasn't learned manners. She squeals her little head off and does not say please.

At first you think she's just fussing, perhaps missing her favorite toy, the umbilical jump-rope. Then you pick her up out of the bassinet and rock her a bit, certain that what she really needs is a little 3:00 AM daddy affection. When the rocking does not pacify her, you must summon the keeper of the jugs.

The keeper of the jugs is like the village elder who lives in a hut high on the hill. She dispenses nectar and wisdom to those who can brave the journey. But she needs her sleep, so beware. It's not wise to piss her off.

When the keeper is dispensing nectar or wisdom, you must fetch her whatever she desires. Has the ice in her water bottle melted? Are the lights too dim or bright? Do the nerps require fresh cold packs? Get moving, peasant boy. Do not make her ask twice.

The picture above was taken at approximately 1:00 PM today. Lyla is fast asleep. We should be sleeping too, for they tell you to rest whenever the newborn rests. But seriously? I haven't napped since I was six. Am I really going to [YAWN] start now?

Lyla stirs. She's crying her hungry cry. Gotta go!

Latch

I find it fascinating that Julie is suddenly a food source. Her breasts, which previously existed solely for my entertainment, now provide sustenance to a miniature person. As crass as it sounds, they are quite literally jugs.

Breastfeeding isn't easy at first, and a lot of mothers give up and switch to formula. I can see why. Babies are born with certain sucking instincts, but they don't understand the importance of the large latch. If it's right, then you shouldn't see any nipple at all. But if they're just sucking on the (what the heck is it called?) nerpy part, then it can hurt like mad after awhile. As it is, even with a good latch, they get sore.

Julie has taken to hat biting as a coping mechanism. Once Lyla latches on, I shove a baby hat into Julie's mouth, and she grinds her teeth into it. We use the same hat for this purpose each time and give Lyla other hats to wear. This is so she doesn't have to wear hats with teeth marks in them and make our visitors nervous about our parenting techniques.

So much time is spent breastfeeding during the newborn stage that it's amazing to see the mother-daughter bond build. I stand by to change the diaper or give Julie water or replace the bite hat when it falls from her mouth. It's going well so far. I think they're both getting the hang of it.

Sage

With a newborn, you think about poop a lot. In their first days, it comes out like tar or chocolate pudding. It doesn't stink either, though by looking at it you'd think that it would. There are charts to help you document how frequently your newborn poops, and there are goals for each day.

Today, Lyla's third day of life, she beat her poop goal by one. Daddy's little girl is an overachiever.

Let's back up. Lyla was born at 8:11 AM on 11/20/08. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces and spanned 22.5 inches.

Here she is:


As my sister Lori puts it, in this picture Lyla looks like she knows stuff that we have all forgotten. How can you argue? You can think of a newborn like a clean slate, all the possibility in the world, yours to shape. Or you can think of a newborn as absolute purity, with an otherworldly wisdom that older humans cannot possibly comprehend.

No wonder her shit doesn't stink.