Compartment 14B
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Mini-me. 2006-03-09 - 11:24 a.m. Having a baby in the house, even after 6 weeks, is still somewhat odd- and foreign-feeling at times. I love Grommet�s little chipmunk squeaks that she uses to communicate with us, but they don�t exactly smack of being human. The other day I was in the kitchen and registered a noise, and actually caught myself thinking idly that it sounded like we had a kitten in the house and what could that be, when KABOOM, it hit me that we had a baby and she was making the noise! At other times it�s brought home to me quite forcefully that I have a sub-10-pound human in my care. One that frowns when she�s perplexed, and yawns and stretches when she�s tired. When she�s hungry, she trains her laser-beam gaze on me, her little lips strain in the direction of whatever has most recently brushed her cheek (a move which looks hilariously cute, by the way, and was dubbed by a friend�s husband a �Jean Chretien�), and she makes little munchy, lip-smacking sounds. SO cute, and so transparent as to what she wants. It is when she�s sad though, that she seems the most like the mini-person she is. Invariably, first thing in the morning she suffers from gas pains. (I don�t really know why but maybe it�s because she�s just spent so much time immobile so it doesn�t get worked through her system at night?) She starts grunting and tensing and straining and, if she can�t poop or toot, as the room gets brighter and she gets more alert she progresses to tears. This is often accompanied by the saddest, most reproachful look beamed at me; a look that seems to say, �Why aren�t you stopping this? Can�t you see it hurts? Why aren�t you helping me and making it all better? Isn�t that what you�re supposed to do?� It breaks my heart, but to help her all I can do is bicycle her little legs, rub her little tummy in a clockwise motion and shift her position frequently, and to comfort her all I can do is murmur encouragement and sympathy and rub her back and head. I can�t take her pain away, and it�s hard to accept but it�s something that I�m sure every parent learns relatively quickly. Incidentally, I�ve read a rather smug breastfeeding book that proclaims that breastfed babies rarely get constipated. While it�s true that her poop doesn�t get hard, what else would you call it when she has to poop and can�t? Sure, it�s because of gas build-up in her little belly (as far as we know), but she still suffers all the same and she still isn�t immune from problems associated with constipation (like the small fissure discovered by my doctor that I mentioned in my last entry). Hmph. Oh well, this is the same book that told me that under no circumstances should I compress or �deform� any part of my breast when putting the baby to it (which made it impossible to get her to take enough into her mouth and get a good latch � leading to unnecessary nipple pain on my part), and that the baby would let go on her own when she was full (yet Grommet will stay on and nibble endlessly sometimes for comfort, long past the time she�s finished actually eating). Lesson learned.
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