Category: neck deep in the zeitgeist

In the last 10 weeks we’ve had innumerable experiences that seemed astonishing to us, but we realize in retrospect are absolutely common. I mentioned early on I would try to avoid the new dad phenomenon of acting like we’re the first people ever to have a baby. So forgive me if it seems trite to mention that our life is so full of effluent these days that we barely even notice it. Things that would have made me choke back a gag in January can now be handled while holding a sandwich in the other hand.

The name of the above-pictured product therefore fits in nicely with our new, no-big-deal attitude toward bodily functions. Half of our conversations revolve around some aspect of belching, farting, peeing or pooping, so it makes perfect sense that we have a product in our lives called “Butt Paste.”

But there is one thing about the product that, despite its efficacy, will make me reconsider when it’s time to buy a new tube:

It smells good.

No, I mean, it smells really good, like something you would fill a pastry with. The web site says it has a balsam scent, but it smells more like vanilla to me. When I’m standing over my son, having just removed his dirty diaper, ready to slather his pooper, I don’t want to be thinking, “I wonder what this tastes like?”

It also distresses me that this blog will now show up in searches for “butt paste smells good.”

Last night Conrad went to bed peacefully at 9pm. He awoke around 4am to eat. Dave had gone to bed at 9:30 and I followed shortly at 10. This allowed us each a 6 hour stretch of much needed sleep. The next awakening was a bit before 7am, but was followed shortly by an hour long nap around 8.

There was a second nap around 11 for about 45 minutes. We went for a car ride at 2, which resulted in the inevitable car nap. Now, it’s 5:30 and our lovely boy is taking his 4th nap of the day. Will wonders never cease?

Also, this morning Conrad passed some developmental milestone. He learned to scooch. By scooching, I mean that he was lying on his back and he used his legs to push himself backwards. He made it out of the baby gym and on to the quilt lying next to it.

I suppose this means that the safety days of leaving him on the bed or other higher surface while doing something else are over. But it’s was quite awesome to see him moving himself across the floor.

But perhaps I’ve ruined it by posting it here for all to see, for now my boy is flapping his arms and kicking his legs in what can only mean, ‘I’m not tired’. Something we’re quite familiar with.

After going through about 50 email responses to our Craig’s List and newspaper postings and half a dozen phone interviews, we have found a nanny. It was actually a lot easier than we thought it would be. There’s a place in town where people looking for work hang out, and she was there with some of the guys. She said she has lots of child care experience. Well, really she just said “Yes” to every question we asked. She promised she’d leave him with plenty of food and water if she had to leave during the day.

But seriously, we did find a nanny. She’s got extensive infant care experience and worked at a daycare center and has a degree in early childhood education. She’s worked at a bank for the last several years but has been thinking of becoming a full-time nanny for a while when she saw our ad. Plus, we like her. We talked to several people who were perfectly well qualified, but didn’t quite gel. Obviously if we’re going to be seeing her every day and discussing Conrad’s growth and happiness and development with her, we want someone who can hold up her end.

Maybe we can add blogging to her list of responsibilities and not go three weeks between posts anymore.

Now of course we have to figure out what to call her. I think we’ll follow the convention from the movie “The Nanny Diaries” and call her Nanny. Maybe we’ll insist she call herself that, too.

“I have to go to the DMV Friday, so I’d like to leave a little early.”

“I’m sorry, what did you say, Nanny?”

“Alright, fine. Nanny has to go to the DMV Friday, so Nanny would like to leave a little early.”

“Absolutely not.”

I’ve just uploaded about three weeks worth of photos to Conrad’s Flickr page, and by the time I’d finished writing captions for some of them, I realized I’d used up all my blog post ideas. Also, I am very tired. So, go look at photos.

We received a book as a shower gift called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. A good friend of ours also confirmed that this was very useful when their daughter was young.

I finally cracked it open a couple of days ago when Conrad started something new: not sleeping. To be truthful, he was sleeping well at night – waking a couple of times to eat, but mainly sleeping from about 9pm to 7 or 8am. But he decided that daytime sleeping was for the birds. Or in our case, the cats.

The book says that babies of his age should never have more than 2 hours of wakefulness. Doing the math, this means once he wakes up and I feed him, he’s got about another hour before he’s supposed to be sleeping again. I tried swaddling, rocking, walking, jiggling, shushing and endlessly repeating, “Go to sleep. Go to sleep.” to no avail.

On Wednesday, he napped in the morning for 2 hours but then was awake from noon to 7pm, at which time he was down for the night. On Thursday, he was up from 7am until 6pm, with a few short catnaps in between. My nerves were a little frazzled.

Today, we have a new approach. Instead of picking him up and rocking him back to sleep when he wakes up 5 minutes after the previous attempt, I left him in his crib. He doesn’t cry, he just sort of flails about, breaking the swaddle and looking like he’s surely wide awake. This has been going on for an hour and a half. And miraculously, he’s actually falling asleep for long periods of time between flails.

Maybe he’s just trying to convey that he no longer enjoys the swaddle.