Ow, ow ow

We had one of those lovely moments this morning that all moms dream of. She wanted to explore my face! Many times when I get near her, she turns her head away, or glances at me for a second and smiles.

But this time she began to study my face. Here it comes, I thought. That touching moment where she caresses my face in wonder and awe, finally recognizing her loving, doting mother.

Of course that didn't happen. Not with my child. She punched me right in the face. See, she can't really open those fists of fury yet to gently stroke my face. Instead, she thrust her clenched fist at me, and then opened it to grab a handful of my hair and cheek. She grasped at me with her razer-sharp Wolverine-like nails, but I didn't care. It was still our precious little moment, and she still wanted to explore my face, however clumsily she did it.

What makes her happy makes mamma happy.

My child has superhuman powers

I'm serious. You think I jest. She resembles at least three superheroes. Unfortunately for us, two of them are the Hulk and an X-Men named Banshee.

When she starts to get angry, we call her Hulk Baby. She starts to grunt, and then she cries and turns a different color. In her case, it's not green but a nasty shade of purple. Sometimes Hulk Baby turns into Banshee. Check out this description of Banshee from Wikipedia: "An Irish mutant, Banshee possesses a 'sonic scream,' capable of harming enemies’ auditory systems and causing physical vibrations."

Yep, that's my girl!

The good superhero is Wolverine, yet another X-Men. She has this amazing ability to heal herself. Which is good, because she routinely catches herself on the face with her nails - also Wolverine-like because her wimpy mamma can only stand to cut them when she's fast asleep.

No more, I can't take anymore!

OK, enough Britney. ENOUGH. This really has nothing to do with being a first-time mom, except for the fact that she is setting a poor example for young girls and young women everywhere. This girl needs help, and someone needs to get it for her. But the last thing she needs is mass publicity by celebrity-hungry tabloid shows and rags.

I expect it from shows like E! News and Entertainment Tonight. But CNN? Isn't there a war going on?

I'm not outraged

I thought I would be. I just went to Bill Maher's Web site for his HBO show Real Time. I enjoy Maher, although I think he spends WAY too much time at the Playboy mansion. Seriously, get a real job Maher.

He recently spent much of his New Rules rant on breastfeeding in public. I was all prepared to be outraged because even though I don't breastfeed, I fully support the right of women to do it wherever they choose. Women should not be required to stay home with the shades drawn until their child turns 1 (the recommended age to which women should breastfeed - per the government!).

It turns out Maher's rant wasn't as anti-breastfeeding as I thought it would be. In fact, it really wasn't anti at all. He just says women should cover up while doing it in a restaurant. Essentially to be discreet about it. I don't know a sane woman who would willingly expose her breasts in a restaurant and call it breastfeeding. Most women I know either cover up or pull down their shirt so very little skin is exposed.

He just delivers his message in typical fashion - barbed and probably a little too sharp for anyone a bit sensitive about the issue. I have to say, I'm not really outraged by it. I do find it ironic, though, coming from a man who apparently takes every opportunity he can to see breasts!

Are ANY toys not made in China?

I'm generally pretty easygoing, but I draw the line at toys knowingly laced with lead. WTH? Who is watching these manufacturers in China?

So my question is, are any toys NOT made in China? I've done a cursory check of some of the toys I want to buy in the future, and they're all made in China. Including - get this - teething rings. Nice.

Now, to be fair, not everything made in China will be tainted with lead paint. But at this point, how do you know? It's up to the individual company to watch their respective manufacturer in China to see if they are using lead paint. And to require them not to use it. So there's no real way for consumers to know for sure.

So if anyone has any toy companies they know are not using these types of paints, let me know! My daughter has just started to grasp her rattle, and the first thing she does - of course, is bring it to her mouth to suck on it.

Which, by the way, how proud am I that my baby is holding a rattle? It's super cute, and I know it's probably time for her to do it but I think she's way advanced and quite frankly, the smartest baby in the world. Just my opinion :)

I HATE bottles

OK, I know. I can't write a super long post about how breastfeeding wasn't for me, then turn around and complain about bottles.

Oh wait, it's my blog - I sure can. And I will. I freakin' hate bottles. If there was any reason to try that much harder next time around (yep, you read right, I'm crazy enough to do it again), it's the bottles. I bet we could buy 100 bottles and still have to wash them every day somehow.

It's like they multiple in the middle of the night. The clean ones somehow dive into the formula mix and lo and behold, by morning they're all dirty, clamoring to be washed again.

And of course, we picked the most time-consuming bottles to use - Dr. Brown's. However, on the plus side of that, I really think they reduce the amount of air my little chicklet takes in, so they're worth it in that aspect.

Oh, and an update from the previous post about the vaccinations yesterday: she did great during the night. She woke up a couple of times, but we gave her baby Tylenol on a 4-hour schedule and she woke up all smiles this morning. Whew.

I have to say, though, I thought I knew the meaning of worry before, but I really felt it this morning at 3:30 a.m. as I was leaning over the railing of her crib watching her breathe. Even though I should have gotten a couple of hours of sleep between her wakings, I couldn't. All I could do is lay in bed and listen to the monitor, waiting for any sign of a disturbance. I'm not normally like that, but with the vaccinations I just couldn't sleep soundly. Such is the life of a mother, I suppose!

My baby's a trooper!

OK, I know she's my baby, so I'm biased. But I gotta say, this little girl's tough. She took those shots like it was nobody's business. She was sucking on her binky, minding her own business, and then wham! The nurse did it before she or I knew what was going on.

And my little one, who I thought would go ballistic, handled it appropriately. Her face turned red, and I knew the wail was coming. I thought it would continue on, but she only hit her second level of crying (there's a level beyond normal baby crying - the one that makes dogs bark in other neighborhoods). Then, she stopped. I popped her binky in, hoping it would take - sure enough, she started sucking away.

By the time I got her carseat locked into the base, she looked at me with a content face. She even gave me a smile, as if to say 'that wasn't so bad, mom.'

Dang, she's tenacious. It's what I love about her.

Quite possible the worst day ever

That may be what I'm saying later tonight. My baby is getting her first set of vaccinations today. I don't mind saying I'm dreading it with every ounce of my being. It will be the first time someone hurts my baby on purpose. Honestly, sticking a needle into them? Can't we find a better way of doing this by now?

My poor child, she's quite the screamer, too. I'm sure the entire office will find out just how powerful her lungs are around 2:50 today. In fact, it could be the screech heard 'round the world.

I just keep repeating the FTM mantra: She won't remember any of this. She won't remember any of this.

Stay tuned to see how it all turns out...

The great breastfeeding debacle

(Warning, this is a LONG post!)

I post this not to start a debate about which is better, but to share my story. I know breastfeeding is best. Believe me, it's been hammered into my brain since the moment I got pregnant.

Every time someone asked, they didn't say 'Will you breastfeed?' They said 'You WILL breastfeed, right?' Like anything else would be the equivalent of giving your baby vodka in a Dr. Brown's bottle.

Of course I was going to breastfeed. It's free, it's supposed to be far more convenient, and it's best for the baby. There was no question. My husband and I invested in a $300 breast pump with a trendy backpack design. We took the breastfeeding class at our hospital. We were primed and ready to go.

Until our baby came. My first breastfeeding experience was trying to put a screaming 1-hour-old baby on my breast while three-fourths of my body was numb (I had a c-section). It pretty much went downhill from there.

There would be shining moments where we thought we had it knocked. But between the anxiety of a FTM wanting to be sure my child was getting enough food, and the fact that my daughter is what "they" call an 'excited ineffective' eater, it wasn't in the cards. She would get too excited and anxious to eat properly, pulling off my breast and screaming. Thank God my husband was home the first two weeks, or she wouldn't have gotten any food at all. He would literally have to hold her arms down so I could handle her enough to eat. No lie - she had superhuman strength (more on my child's superhuman qualities later).

We struggled for the first week-and-a-half: either she was too sleepy and wouldn't wake up to eat, or she would attack me voraciously. There was no in between, and neither were optimal circumstances. Pile onto that a FTM's anxiety AND the baby blues (which were hitting me like a ton of bricks) and you have a recipe for disaster. Plus, it hurt. Yeah, they don't tell you that when they're talking about the benefits. "They" say if it hurts you're doing it wrong. But every single mom I've talked to said it hurt for them in the beginning. Now some say it gets better, but others go through pain for months before that happens. Not to scare anyone, I'm just giving the honest warning I didn't get.

But I was willing to try to get through the pain. However, the last straw came after a visit to the lactation consultant during week 2. I fed my daughter on one breast after some struggling, and the nurse weighed her. She had received a whopping 8 cc's from that breast. We switched her to the other one. She ate and we weighed her again. 4 cc's. I burst into tears. I was starving my child, I KNEW it! It was my biggest fear coming true, and all my anxiety rushed to the surface.

Even the lactation consultant was surprised. She had been so positive up until that point that we could just work on the latch. But she conceeded that we needed to supplement until my milk supply returned to full strength. So she recommended what I now consider was a modern-day torture device: the supplemental nurser.

Picture this: a syringe filled with formula attached to a small, plastic tube. The tube is taped to my breast with the end protruding right by my nipple (hey, I'm trying to paint a picture here, so it's OK to imagine my nipple). The idea is she nurses, and gets the formula, too - helping the milk supply AND getting her nourishment. Great theory, right?

Now, mind you we had to do this every two hours. It was a disaster. The tube wouldn't stay taped properly, and it would slip out of her mouth, squirting formula everywhere. Then, of course, my excited ineffective eater would pull off and scream, squirming violently the whole time. Loads of fun. It would take between 45-minutes to an hour to feed her like this, giving us an hour before we had to go through the whole ordeal again.

It was enough to make any new mom break down. But the silver lining was seeing what happened when she got her belly full of formula. She slept - mercifully she slept! Prior to that we were convinced she had colic she screamed so much.

It was after about three of those feeding and seeing her sleep from filling her belly with formula that we decided to make the switch. I agonized for days over the decision, feeling I had failed my daughter and womankind by giving up. I vowed to pump endlessly to continue to give my daughter breastmilk (that lasted for a while, but I ended up choosing sleep over pumping).

In the end, I realized that breast is best, but only if it doesn't result in a depressed, anxiety-ridden mother who resents feeding time and an angry, hungry baby. And I learned that I don't really give a rat's ass about what anyone thinks of my decision (a newfound power I have over other people's opinions) because I know it was the best thing for me. I'll never look back and regret it, because I now have a healthy, chubby baby who loves feeding time (as does her mommy).

That's not to say formula feeding is perfect, but that's a whole other post.

Nap time - sweet, sweet nap time

My biggest decisions for the day tend to be what to do during nap time. It's a sweet reprieve of anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours that becomes mommy time. The trouble is, you often have no idea how long it will last.

So you end up rushing through just about any project you have. Or, you end up squandering it by surfing the Internet, checking the 6,000 new posts on Babycenter since you checked it two hours ago (I swear that is the most prolific message board I've ever seen!).
I usually do the latter. And then I think next time I'll be better. I'll wash out all those bottles that are piling up next to the sink, or start that load of laundry sitting in the hamper. Or better yet, take that much-needed shower and brush my teeth.

You'd think that would be a priority, but hell, who am I trying to impress? My baby doesn't care if I stink. In fact, she reeks herself with stinky formula neck. It's the telltale sign of a formula-fed baby - stinky neck. All you have to do is lean in and take a small whiff. Blech!

So here we are, two stinky peas in a pod.

My biggest enemy - gas

In my former life, pre-child, I was a journalist. I wasn't anything special, just a newspaper reporter at a small town daily. But I had my fair share of challenges and big stories. I went up against politicians and others to protect the First Amendment and preserve my strong belief in the people's right to know about their community.

Now, my biggest challenge is gas. On a daily basis, I protect my daughter's right to be gas-free, or at least to have the least amount of gas possible. It is a battle I am losing on a daily basis.

I read in a book - one of those many baby books about to be torched - that gas does not hurt a baby. That it doesn't cause them pain. Yeah - come on over to my house at 4 a.m. when my baby's curled up, kicking her legs like mad and choking out cries. I dare you to go to any mother's house when that happens and tell them scientifically gas doesn't hurt them. You will likely get that book hurled at your back as you're running out the door.

Just more proof those books are written by men who have no children.

Bar the doors and windows - it's a first-time mom!!

That's got to be the reaction each time a pediatrician's office gets that dreaded call to set up a first appointment. I imagine an unsuspecting receptionist, chatting with nurses and sipping on a bottle of water when the phone rings. They pick it up, only to find out minutes into the conversation the frenzied voice on the other end is a FTM.

They drop the phone and slam their hand onto a red alarm button on the desk. Lights begin flashing and bars drop down over the doors and windows, protecting those inside from dreaded FTM.

For those of you who are more laid back than I, what I will describe has another name in a romantic relationship - stalking. You know what I mean - calling late at night, desperate for reassurance. Calling 4 out of 5 week days (yes, I did that, but in my defense, my daughter was constipated. You would have their office on speed dial if it meant getting THAT situation cleared up). Showing up at the doctor's office unannounced to sneak your daughter onto the scale to see if she gained weight since the last time.

Yes, it's officially stalking, but since it's my daughter's doctor, it's OK. Thank goodness. I feel a little silly calling so much, but - as I'm sure I'll point out in more posts - there is no solace in baby books. Look up a stuffy nose as a symptom, and all of the sudden your child has the ebola virus.

And God forbid baby books should agree with each other. I've never been a proponent of burning books, but one more contradiction among the four I own and I may be having a bonfire. I guess I'll have to put that pediatrician on speed dial after all.

Crack-smoking baby clothes manufacturers

The people who design the majority of baby clothes are either high or sick individuals.

I mean really - who makes a pajama sleeper with only three buttons at the top? My child is bendy, but come on. I can just see people sitting around a boardroom table laughing diabolically as they approve these designs. They know some unsuspecting and well-meaning person will buy these for an expecting mom at a shower. The mom will take the clothes gratefully, figuring it's one less thing to buy. At the time, she won't give a second thought to the logistics of jamming a newborn's squirmy, contorted body into aforesaid pajamas.

However, the mom will rue the day they took such a gift, and curse the manufacturer who had the nerve to mass produce such a torture device.

I'm convinced the people who design baby clothes are without child. I think it's pretty obvious. If they had kids, they would make them out of material impervious to stinky formula (more on stinky formula later), poo (much more on poo later) and any thing else an otherwise beautiful baby decides to eject from their body.

What is a FTM?

For those uninitiated in the world of Babycenter and other message boards for parents, an FTM is a first-time mom. It's the brand we wear as amateurs into parenthood.

Our first borns will be obvious - they are the ones wearing onesies that are perpetually off by one snap. The child's parents will look like the walking dead, slugging through stores with hair askew, no makeup on and searching desperately for all the baby items they didn't know they would need, like 100 burp cloths and shirts with mittens on the end.

This blog is all about the joys, frustrations and tribulations of parenting for the first time. I can only recount what has happened to us, and what I know from personal experience. My only solace is that my dear daughter won't remember any of it.

Feel free to let me know what you think, and enjoy this roller coaster ride along with me.