Down The Rabbit Hole

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a blog called I Should Be Folding Laundry.  First of all, I love the name – boy can I relate.  I spend an inordinate amount of time (while Áine naps) on the computer, on Facebook or processing photos, time that should be spent picking up the house or doing other chores.

Beth, the author, is also a photographer, and every week she posts a new “challenge” for her readers, which she calls the “You Capture” Challenge.  It’s really fun, each week she posts a theme.  For example, last week was “Motion”, the week before that was “You” (self portraits).  I participate off and on, depending on how busy I am, but it’s fun to have an assignment!  It makes me keep my eyes open and be creative.

Anyway, this week’s theme is “Peace”, and it just so happens this one came easy.  My folks are in town for their annual Malibu trip, so we’ve been spending our days on the beach.  It’s a different house than they have stayed in for the past eight years (the usual one wasn’t available), but the new one has a view that is just as stunning.  I can sit and look at that ocean and that coastline forever.  I took this photo a couple evenings ago at sunset, and everything was just bathed in gold light.  So lovely, so peaceful.

Not much going on ’round these parts this week.  Áine continues to enjoy trying new foods.  So far sweet potatoes are the big winner, although she also seems to like pears and avocado.  Not too sure about bananas yet, but she ate them.  My mom gave me this neat little babyfood maker so I’ve been able to easily whip up some fresh purées for her. It’s been really fun watching her face as she tries all the new foods.  The first bite always gets a furrowed brow, but if she likes it then she’ll kind of lunge forward in her chair with her mouth open wide, ready for more.

But you knew I had to write about this sooner or later…

What solid food does to her diapers is atrocious.  Sorry for the ridiculous parental cliché of “let’s talk about my kid’s poop!”, but jesum crow, it’s something else.  She was one of those lucky (for Mama and Papa) breastfed babies who pooped once every ten days or so, and it was that interesting pumpkin-y looking, not smelly stuff that comes out of breastfed kids.  NOW?  I’m thinking of investing in a gas mask.  And it doesn’t all come out in one go.  She’s still getting the hang of this new pooping thing, so she’ll go, she’ll scream because she hates sitting in a diaper full of stinky poo (who can blame her), I change her, and ten minutes later she’s grunting again and we do it all over.  I should probably wait a little longer after I know she’s gone before I change her but I hate to think of her sitting around in a full diaper.

It’s silly I know but the changes in Áine’s poo are just one more sign of how fast she’s growing up.  She changes every single day.  Since she’s started solid food she’s been nursing less and I’ve been struck by how conflicted I feel about this.  For six months there has been part of me that has been really looking forward to her not being quite so physically dependent on me.  Needing to be present every 2-3 hours as her only source of nourishment has been at pretty taxing at times.  But a couple days after we started her on real food there was a day when she just wasn’t very hungry and after her breakfast rejected my breast all day long.  I freaked out – what if she was weaning herself already?  What if she liked that rice cereal so much that she decided she didn’t need her “deelicious meelks” anymore?

The next day all was back to normal, but I realized how not ready I am for her to stop nursing.  I need her to need me like that for a little while longer.  We tried so hard and so long to have our baby girl and now it’s not going to be too much longer before she’s not our little baby anymore.  She’ll be our little girl, then our big girl, and then our daughter will be a beautiful young woman.

And to think it all started with stinky poo.