another poop story

Recently, I decided that it was time for us to go back to cloth diapers.  We used to have do a diaper service, and it was great.  Every week, they'd come and haul our bag of dirty diapers and bring us fresh ones.  We used disposables during the first few weeks (because G stole like a million packs of Pampers from the hospital -- we were there for a week, and he'd hide half-used packages in our bags so that they'd bring us more.  Plus we had a lot from our baby shower, so it made sense to use them up first) and at night.  But ultimately, we switched to cloth for full-time day use and I've always liked them better.  They seemed to be better for preventing diaper rash, better at holding in the poop blow-outs, and nicer to the environment. 

Diya's daycare wouldn't deal with cloth, though, so then we switched to a cloth/compostable option.  Still with the service, but they take away all our diapers and compost the non-cloth ones.  The compostable diapers are actually pretty cool.  If you're willing to spend the money and want to be environmentally friendly, these are almost like disposables.  We gave those to Diya's daycare and used cloth at home.  And then when Diya got into her cast, the cloth didn't fit inside there, so we had to full time compostable -- a little one stuffed inside the cast, and a giant one on the outside to hold everything in.  It's been almost 5 months since she came out of the cast and we just hadn't bothered going back yet.  Mostly, I worry about dealing with frequent diaper changes with Diya's brace.  It's a pain to take off and on.

I've missed cloth diapers though, and as Diya gets older, I've been wanting to give them another go.  For one thing, she pees less frequently now, so it doesn't seem like it'll be as much of a pain to take her brace off and on.  And, there are a lot of cloth diapers that are more absorbent than the ones we'd been getting from the diaper service.  So it's not like we'd be changing her diaper every 30 minutes like the olden days.  Also, her new daycare has said that they'd be willing to handle cloth diapers too, so really, it'd be there problem during the week. 

So . . . we're trying again.  But this time, I want to go all in.  No more service, we do our own wash.  Mostly just so we have more options as to what kind of diapers we get.  And I want to start using cloth at night time too.  I've been buying all kinds of diapers online to get our stash built up enough to just do laundry every few days or so, and to stop our service.  I think G's getting a little tired of the daily diaper packages. 

The big problem with this plan is that I'm pretty grossed out by diapers in general and all things poop-related.  I had a bit of a melt down when Tucker kicked up poop on my leg (I tried to find the link to this post and couldn't), and it's all I can do to shake Diya's solids down the toilet now without yakking (yes, like responsible people, we dump her dumps into the toilet, even with our compostables, and there have been times when I've missed the toilet and poop's landed on the rim.  Last week, I thought I lost my poop in the hallway, only to realize it landed on the underside of the rim somehow.  I seriously went down the hallway looking for a nugget, ewing the whole time.  If you visit my house, don't worry, I'm obsessive about cleaning that toilet rim now).  Anyway, I'm still worried about how this is going to work with me having to wash this stuff. 

So far, though, the trial runs have proven to be not much grosser than the compostable poops.  I shake the poops out, and put the diapers in a laundry bag.  The only difference is that I keep a little Bio-Kleen next to the toilet to do a quick spray before throwing them into the laundry bag.  Just to avoid any staining.  The pee ones I just toss in as is.  I'm a little grossed out when I throw the diapers into the toilet, but honestly, I'm always just as grossed out pulling out the disposable/composable bins and trying those bags up. 

Sounds good right?  This morning, though, I realized there might be a few tweaks to still work out.  Well, actually, the other day she had a poop and I realized I didn't know what to do with the wipe.  See, during this trial period, our diaper set up isn't really optimized for the cloth diapers.  We have 2 diaper pails, one for compostable, one for trash/disposable wipes/etc.  I have a little laundry bag on the side, but once we switch over, it's not going to be the best way to go.  For one thing, it's kind of hard opening the damn bag with a diaper in my hand.  Anyway, the other thing is that if the wipes are really poopy, we take those to the toilet too and flush them down.  Just to avoid stinking up the baby's room too much.  Anyway, the other day she had a poop, and I didn't know where to put the wipe.  Usually, they just lay on top of the diaper until they all get hauled to the bathroom.  But I don't want poop stains on the outside of my new cloth diapers.  So while trying to figure out where to set it down, I accidentally TOUCHED poop.  So ew, ew, ew. 

Anyway, that was earlier.  This time, I thought I had it figured out.  Diya had her first monster poop in the cloth (actually I feel totally bad -- I think she may have pooped during the HALF HOUR it took for her to fall asleep for her nap this morning, but then finally just fell asleep with poop in her butt.  Maybe.  I don't know, it was a monster poop, I would think it'd be hard to sleep through.  But whenever it happened, she had a monster poop in her butt when she woke up).  It was mostly solid but super soft, and there was poop all over her vag, and it was pretty disgusting.  And of course, fun to clean up, because for one, she's been really squirmy in the changing table lately.  Plus, she had this stuffed dog in her hand that she refused to give up. 

So here I am, trying to hold her butt up long enough to clean it (cuz there was poop in the back too and I was trying to avoid getting it all over the changing table).   She's waving her fricking dog around, and started SCREAMING when I took it away.  I figure I have this wipe/diaper thing sorted out and set the diaper down on the floor and several extremely poopy wipes on top of the diaper pail.  I even set a kleenex down on the pail to avoid getting poop on the pail, and worked hard to avoid, you know, touching!! the poop.  So far, so good.  The kid is still screaming, and I have no idea if the stuffed dog touched poop before I managed to wrangle it away from her.  So when she was clean enough to give it back to her, I still wasn't sure if it was ok to.  I tried to smell it, but man the whole room reeked at this point, so it was hard to say if there was a particular funk coming from it or not.  (Do you think I'm terrible for admitting that I finally just gave it back to her?). 

OK, so this right here is the whole point of my post, so if you've stuck it out for this long, you're in for a treat.  So I'm feeling proud, right, of getting better at this.  Things are going well, and aside from maybe some poop damage to a stuffed animal, I'm doing all right.  The kid's only screaming a little bit now.  And all of a sudden I look over and there's Tucker EATING the poop from the kid's diaper!!  Not smelling, or just checking out, but totally noshing.  And had gotten a fair amount of it out.  Can I just say, OMFG, really????  Dude, I'd even mostly closed it, but he'd somehow managed to nose his way in. 

EW EW EW EW

So yah.  That was fun.  I chased him out of the room, screaming like a banshee (which of course had the kid just staring at me like WTF).  The most unsatisfying part was that I couldn't even really chase him far b/c I had this kid squirming away on top of the changing table still.  I stuck a new diaper on her, set her in her crib for a few while I went to dump out the poop.  Like I said, it was a bit soft, so there was some that wouldn't come out so I sprayed the hell out of it and I guess we'll see how well it washes out.  I did manage to make it past the rim and into the toilet.  The wipes got flushed, and whatever, the room still stinks so it was a lot of work for not much reward (contrary to what you might be thinking, it's not my cloth laundry bag that reeks -- that actually just smells like BioKleen).

I, of course, then immediately called G to tell him what HIS dog had done.  When he stopped laughing, he asked me why I hadn't just put the diaper on top of the OTHER diaper pail instead of the floor.  In retrospect, I said, that probably would have been best.  But never in a million years did I even think that I'd have to worry about the dog eating the kid's poop.  Then he wanted to know why I hadn't just let Tucker help me clean that portion of the diaper that wouldn't fall out into the toilet. 

Clearly I'm not utilizing my dogs to their full potential.  

these are the days

I've always loved LOVED kids.  Like, seriously, I think I knew when I was 9 years old that I wanted one or maybe two or five.  But I tended to like them on the older side.  Babies seemed a little tiny and useless.  Honestly, all they do is poop and cry all the time.  I thought that when I was 9 and pretty much thought that right up until the moment I gave birth, probably several months after even. 

And then I don't know when I started to come around (I'm assuming I've come around anyway, seeing as how I have this kid that I kind of think is awesome).   But still, I realize why you really just can't see the value in babies until you have your own.  And then, I'm not sure how that translates into liking OTHER people's babies.  Because you hear it all the time, including from my own mouth -- some other baby comes into the room, and I'm all "AW, so cute, I remember when my little bugger was this tiny.  Those were the days, huh kiddo?"  And I look wistfully down at my much larger child and remember the days when it didn't hurt my arms to carry her around. 

All of us are on crack when we think this.  Or we're lying.  Or maybe the hormones that let us willingly endure torture from a little nugget barely the size of our hand still haven't worn off.  Because back when our own darlings were that size, we were a colossal sleep-deprived mess with vomit and poop all over our clothes.  

So before you start thinking I'm terrible (but come on, you know you agree with me, whether you have kids or not), I will say that I'm SO aware of how quickly this time has flown.  These days, Diya doesn't want to be rocked to sleep anymore.  We're down to nursing once a day.  She wants to try to eat on her own.  She hands me her sippy cup to give her some water, and I melt, just happy to be needed for something.  I know I'm going to blink and suddenly she's going to be off to college in another state.  It scares the shit out of me, and there are days when I want every moment to last forever, just like exactly the way it is.  

But then there are mornings like today.  And I don't look back, I look forward, to a time when she becomes some one you can talk to, reason with.  Today, she's been having one of those "goddangit, i woke up too early with pee up my back and i'm not letting you forget it, witch" days.  The tears started when we were changing her outfit (although apparently dad was able to win giggles before he took off for work), continued after her morning milk.  Which seemed sufficient at the time, but ten minutes later, she caught sight of her sippy cup and decided that she needed more seven seconds ago.  Then it was on to pointing at the window wanting to play ball.  Which entails me carrying her, throwing the ball, running after the ball, picking it up, letting her throw the ball, and then leaning down again to pick it up and throw it again for real.  You know, kind of like playing chess with yourself but so much harder on your arms. 

That ended much too soon for her liking because I may have enlisted Mia's help with the fetching portion but that was not to her majesty's liking.  Of course Mia then went off with the ball, and you would have thought the world had ended the way tears started flowing. 

I was finally able to convince her to chase the ball around in the kitchen herself, and she happily threw it across the room, crawled over to it, and repeat long enough for me to get her breakfast going.  I think Mia was peeved to have both her ball and her game be commandeered by the baby (who has way too many off-limit toys already).  She sulked in a corner, but honestly, I could only deal with one offspring's drama and hurt feelings at a time. 

Anyway, she's napping now.  It was one of these mornings where 8:30 rolled around and I figured it was respectably late enough to try for a morning nap while I finally got some breakfast and tea.  I had already called G at 7 to tell him that he better not be late coming home from work because there was only so much I can take.  He was still driving to work at the time.

The drama queen behavior is a new thing.  She points and cries if it's not immediately offered to her.  Whether it's running around outside or the hot pan on the stove top, it has to be hers if she wants it.  And seriously, the tears will start running down her face immediately.  She's an on and off switch, laughing with glee when you provide and in utter despair when you don't.  I had been thinking this was something I could look forward to in teenage land, but clearly, my daughter has gotten a head start. 

I'm finding that I have no patience for this phase.  Give me the hospital visits and middle-of-the-night wake ups.  I might complain about them but they don't grate on my nerves the way the whining does.  On these days, I look forward to the time when I can tell her, "I'm sorry, you can't have that knife because you can do some serious damage to your pretty face if you're not careful" and have that be the end of it.  Anyone have some earplugs I can borrow until then?

In other news, you know how dogs sometimes have pieces of grass stuck in their butthole after they poop?  And you have to help them pull it out because if they're like Mia, they freak out that it's there and can't just push out a little harder?  And it's because you can't stop the damn dogs from eating grass because they're idiots like that?  Well, anyway, this morning, our human child had a blade of grass stuck in her butt when she pooped!!   Dammit, why won't anyone listen to me when I tell them that grass isn't for eating???

Clearly, it's been an eventful morning. 

hip update

About a month ago, we had a follow-up appointment and x-ray for Diya's hips.  The news was pretty discouraging.  In the two months since our last appointment, Diya's hip had made no progress.   Two months of full-time brace wear (on top of the one month before the appt, as well as 7 weeks of cast + 2 weeks of harness) and we had nothing to show for it.  The angles of the hip were exactly the same as last time.  We may as well not have even come in for the x-ray. 

It was a huge blow after the success of our first post-op appointment where Diya had been ahead of schedule.  In my head, although I knew it was premature, I had pictured us maybe coming off the brace during the day and graduating to nights only.  To make the whole thing even harder to swallow, Diya had just turned one.  And back when all this started, I had hoped that by the time she reached 1 year, we'd at least be down to only wearing the brace at night.  The process has already taken a lot longer than I had initially hoped, though I guess I didn't realize back then what was reasonable to hope for. 

And then, to cap it off, after the appointment, I decided to post my frustration on a hip board that I've been part of for a while.  I also mentioned that Diya still had a hard time moving her legs, especially the bad one.  She won't straighten it out downwards.  I keep reading about babies being able to wear pants again once they were out of their spica cast.  But we can't get pants on her still because she holds her legs in the froggy position even with the brace off.  She cries when we move it.   Bath times had been especially rough because she can't sit up in the baby tub.  She seemed fine as long as she was lounging back in the tub, but when we tried to raise her a bit to a sitting up position (to scrub her back or let her play with toys), she'd start wailing.   The problem is, in the tub, the legs are scrunched in a bit.  She can't hold them out horizontally because the tub is too small.  Not sure if that makes any sense the way I'm describing it. 

Anyway, so I mentioned the pain in my post, and suddenly, I had a bunch of people responding saying that I should get a second medical opinion.  Because that kind of pain doesn't seem normal.  So THAT was fun to hear.  Nobody talked about what would be a reasonable progress to hope for in terms of hip angles between doctor appointments.  Which is what I'd been mostly frustrated about.  So overall, the post was a bust. 

AND, the week before this, we had gone in for our 1yr check up with our pediatrician, and she had also been concerned about the pain.  She told us to ask our specialist about possibly trying physical therapy because she should be moving her leg a bit more than she does.  So in light of that, these posts were especially fun to read. 

I LOVE our ortho doc, so I was able to read these responses without having a meltdown.  At the actual ortho appointment, the doc and occupational therapist had been unconcerned about the lack of progress.  These things take time, they said.   Diya is still doing fine.  And as for physical therapy, she doesn't need it.  Of course her leg will be stiff from holding it in a brace all day long.  When she's allowed to take it off, we'll be surprised at how quickly it'll get back to normal.  

So I guess medically, all is still fine.  The projected time for full time brace wear is 6-8 months, we're still just at 4.  So I can't hope for miracles, I suppose.  And of course I need to stop posting about my appointments in online groups.  But I'm not very good at waiting, and lately, it just feels like we've been waiting for a long long time.  If she doesn't progress any further, then the next step is more invasive surgery.  But no one is ready to talk about that yet.   There's nothing left to do now other than wait for our next appointment which is still another 5 weeks away. 

In other news though, Diya is getting to be much more active despite her brace.  Within the last few weeks, she's started "crawling."  It's an army crawl, with her pushing with her arms.  But she's actually gotten pretty fast with it.  Until this week, I could leave her on the floor of our room while I showered and expect her to quietly play with her toys.  I can see her through the shower door, and she can keep herself entertained pretty well.  On Monday, though, I watched as she pulled herself along to the nearest electrical socket and started poking at it.  So if you'd been a fly on my wall that morning, you'd have seen me rushing out of the shower with conditioner in my hair trying to move her.  Only to have her then make her way to the other side of the room where the dog water is and be sitting in a little puddle before I could dry myself off.  In the 4 minutes it took me to feed the dogs that morning, she'd found the OTHER bowl of dog water in the living room.  Is it bad that I start cracking up whenever she does this?

Bath times have gotten much more pleasant, so I think she is able to move that leg a bit more now than before.  We're able to sit her up for brief periods during the bath without fuss.  And I think that was really the only source of distress during the baths.  Now that she's not all freaked out about her leg hurting, she's been splashing and enjoying the water just fine. 

A few weeks ago, she started sitting up, which is something she hasn't done since before she got her cast.  She does it with her legs splayed out, like a gymnast doing splits.  Until now, she could never keep her balance this way, and lately, she's been starting to get better at it.  I know it's cheesy, but I feel so proud of her when she does these things.  Probably even more so than your typical parent, just because I see how difficult it must be with that big brace on. 

So I guess progress does come slowly and eventually.  Ultimately, these new milestones don't say a whole lot about her hips.  That is, she could be army-crawling through the house at lightning speed, and it doesn't mean that her hip is getting better.  But for her sake, I'm glad that she's able to be more mobile.  Cuz she could be in this thing for a while longer still. 

And I guess it's pretty darn cute for us, too.  Though it means that we might have to start baby-proofing after all. 

the end?

Last Wed, I decided to stop pumping. I was packing up my pump parts that morning and decided that I didn't feel like it. It was time. The day's been coming for a couple of weeks now, so it's really not as rash as it sounds. It's been in the works since Diya turned 1 (can you believe is? She's ONE YEAR OLD, actually 13 months now!). We started giving her regular whole milk a week or two before her first birthday. We started working harder at her sippy cup skills. Daycare has been working on her regular cup skills, since I guess they go straight over to that.

Each time I thought about stopping pumping, though, the moment never seemed right. She's still not that great with her sippy. And she blows bubbles with a regular cup. True, the two aren't necessarily linked. There's nothing to stop her from taking her whole milk in a bottle. And she loves bottles. But I want to be done with the whole deal, pump parts, bottle nipples, the whole shebang. And it's supposed to be a good transition time. Many people argue (including the American Pediatric Association, our daycare, and several friends that I rely on for childrearing advice) that if we wait too long, it could be much harder to make the switch. And I certainly don't want a 3 yo walking around with a bottle in her mouth all the time. I don't even want her with one at 2. So now seemed like as good a time as any. And honestly, I need the counter space in my kitchen. Our bottle/pump part rack takes up an awful lot of space near the sink.

But still, I waited for excuses to stall. I was worried she wouldn't get enough fluids. Plus, although she liked whole milk just fine, I didn't want to make the switch all at once. She tends to get constipated a lot, and dairy's not great for that. So for weeks, we've been slowly mixing the whole milk into her breast milk bottles. I kept waiting for her to loosen up. But the problem is, she's had the tendency for constipation since she started solids months ago. I could be waiting her whole life for the right time.

So in the end, I needed to do it like a band aid. On Wed, I took my pump into work with me just in case I caved, but didn't look at it once. It was actually harder that night at home to not do it at bedtime, just one more time. It's not that I'll miss pumping. I've hated it from the first, and this day couldn't come soon enough. God, it's been the bane of my existence since I started doing it regularly at 6 months, and can I tell you how much I would have paid Gregg to do it instead if somehow we could have switched roles?

What I will miss though is nursing. I'm not stopping that yet. I'll still nurse for a while mornings and evenings as long as Diya wants. But I know that she probably won't want to for long. I think she hasn't been that into it for a while. She'll take it when offered, nurse quickly, and move on. I think she holds out for solid food. So I've decided to continuing offering first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. It's only a matter of time I think before I start to dry up now. Usually, in the evenings, when I've offered her the boob, at least half the time, she's fussed and I've just given up and pumped instead.

EXCEPT: I started writing this post last Wed and I figured we'd already be done nursing now. But so far, my kid's actually taken the boob happily whenever I've offered it! And during the day last Thurs, it almost seemed like she wanted it. (It's hard to say for sure, she kept staring intently at my chest, but she was also pretty attracted to the picture of the dog on my shirt that day.  And maybe I was feeling a little nostalgic too). So we'll see, for now, she seems to have other plans, and I'm happy to be oblige for a bit longer. Though I'm definitely definitely not going to miss the pump.

meal times

Before the little munchkin was born, a friend told me to savor my mealtimes because they would be the last times I really got to enjoy my food without a wailing infant in the background.  Gee thanks, you couldn't have also bothered to tell me the kid's mealtimes would be out of control for the foreseeable future too?

No one bothered telling me that.  That things get better briefly only to present new challenges around the next corner.  At our house, first it was breastfeeding.  As in, the kid didn't really want to do it and didn't know how.  But it got easier and we seemed to finally be moving right along.  But then she started daycare and drinking out of bottles.  And suddenly, she didn't want to nurse anymore.  I mean, why bother when bottles are much less work.  So nursing sessions suddenly became scream fests (you know, me screaming and the kid wailing, or maybe the other way around?).  That was a fun period, all kinds of mother-baby bonding at the boob and all that. 

We kind of got through that phase but I couldn't wait for us to start solids just to make things easier.  I was tired of pumping, and I just never produced milk the same way after she stopped nursing regularly.  It was always a struggle to keep up with her bottle intake.  So the 6 month mark came along, and I was ready with a bowl full of mashed avocados mixed in with the familiar taste of breastmilk.   Delicious, right?  Who wouldn't love it?

Well, clearly my kid.  Diya didn't like solids.    Not when she was 6 months or 7 or even 8. Then all of a sudden, she started loving EVERYTHING and we couldn't keep her from putting everything in her mouth (including every random kernel/piece of dust on the floor).  And somewhere in there, she started to tolerate nursing again, so I figured we had it made.

Except now we've entered new territory.  She still loves to eat but wants to feed herself.  Which is fine except that she doesn't really know how to eat with a spoon yet.  Sometimes, she manages it with help, but most of the time, my attempts to help result in screaming (again, me/her, who the heck knows).  So I leave her to it and suddenly, 2 seconds later, we have a big pile of blueberry mush all over the table and floor.

My response so far has been to forget the spoon altogether and focus on foods she can pick up with her fingers.  Lately, she's been able to eat what we eat, so I come home and try to either cook dinner quickly or make her a small version of whatever we'll be having later.  A while back, I made a Thai curry with veggies and tofu.  And it worked out beautifully.  First I cooked up the tofu and gave her some while I was chopping up veggies.  She stuffed them into her mouth (to the point where I think she didn't know what to do with them all) and still had room for some cooked vegetables after.  It seemed like such a productive way to handle it -- she got to take all the time she needed, I wasn't sitting around waiting for her to finish.  I brought all my veggies to the dining room table where she was eating, so I could keep her company (and from choking on her tofu).  Win/win for everyone.

Sounds great, right?  Except then, we ran into another snag.  Diya's realized that it's fun to eat her food, but it's even MORE fun to feed it to the dogs.  So now, instead of finger foods being my savior, I'm not entirely sure what to do.  I spend lots of mornings watching her take each piece of egg and holding it down into Mia's face.  Mia likes to gobble straight out of her hands.  They're a bit of a tag team now too.  I'll walk away to bring more food or something, and I'll suddenly see the two of them at it.  When I say something, both look at me, kind of guiltily but then the kid actually starts giggling.  She thinks this is funny. 

What's extra fun is that dog feeding is interspersed with self feeding, so the kid's hands are covered in dog slobber when she'll suddenly decide to take another bite herself.  Awesome.  And somehow, I think she's realized that she needs to treat the dogs equally.  Cuz she'll make sure to drop food over on the other side to Tucker also. 

So then my newest technique was to keep the kid distracted and just feed her myself.  That worked pretty well actually.  Until daycare lectured us this week on not reinforcing the skills they taught at home.  I guess instead of feeding herself with the spoon on Mon, Diya just sat there and waited for the teacher to feed her.  So basically, she totally ratted us out, the little turd. 

So we're back to dog feeding and self spoon feeding and kitchen generally looking like an earthquake hit it after each meal.  On the plus side, the kid's not terrible at eating with a spoon.  Also, her favorite food?  Avocado.

naptime (i.e. yet another sleep post)

The other day, a friend marveled at our kid's napping abilities and told me how lucky we were.  It made me start thinking about how this happened.  Because for months, I feel like all I did was complain about nap issues and how poorly our kid did it.  So, for anyone interested, I've put together some tips on raising a good napper.  These tips have worked well for me, and you know me, always sharing my hard-earned wisdom. 

• Create a regular naptime routine. For us, having regular naptimes never really worked, but what did was to have a general routine. About 2 hours after waking up, Diya was tired, so I would immediately start putting her down for her nap. At first, it wasn’t quite 2 hours (more like an hour and a half, and since she breastfed for ONE HOUR, it didn’t leave a lot of time to do much else after). And as she grew older, her periods of awake time lengthened, and her feeding times shortened.
• Stick with it. Always. No matter what. Our kid liked being swaddled and rocked, so that’s what we did. She could already have fallen asleep randomly on my boob or on someone’s shoulder, but still, we’d change her diaper, swaddle, and put back down (even if it meant waking her up in the process). Nowadays, she likes the sleep sack and her lovey blanket. We wouldn’t dream of putting her to sleep without it, and I’ve actually gone back home when I’ve shown up to daycare without it.
• Avoid leaving the house during naptimes. No naps in the car or stroller.
• Avoid feeding just before sleep, to reduce the chances of the kid waking up early with poop in her butt.
• Avoid visiting people that live more than 20 minutes away, since there is no chance of you being able to go, visit, then come back within the awake period.
• Encourage people to visit you instead but tell them to keep their voices down so as to not wake the baby prematurely from her nap.
• Also make sure they text you when they arrive instead of ringing the doorbell, so as to avoid the dogs going crazy and waking the baby up prematurely.
• Start eating dinner at 4 so as to get the baby to bed early (that’s not a nap tip, just a general bedtime tip).
• Avoid leaving the house after 4 for the same reason as above.
• Generally figure you will have no life after the baby is born until about 7-8 months when the naps are set in place. Then only plan on having a life in 2-3 hour increments (maybe 4 once the child is a bit older) so as to not interfere too drastically with the established nap schedule.
• After that allow for periods of adjustment as nap needs change (from 3 naps to 2, 2 to 1). Restructure your life accordingly.
• Brag about your child’s excellent nap habits to any existing friends over email and on your blog (unless they live within 20 minutes of you, in which case you may be able to brag in person).
• Wait for your child to become a teenager.

 

the best dog in the world

On April 27, at around 4pm, we lost our wonderful dog Bandit. Who was, as anyone who's ever met her knows, the best dog in the world. I've been meaning to write about it for a while and by this point, I think most of you already know. But it's been a little hard for me to know exactly what to say.


After months of weakness, and the final weeks of being unable to even poop or pee on her own, we decided that it was time. My husband has had Bandit since he was in college. His brother first got her as a puppy while they were living together at Chico State. My brother-in-law finished school and left, and somehow Bandit became Gregg's dog. Over the years, she's touched many lives, and has been the first dog experience for many of us. And after having a dog like Bandit, it's hard to imagine any other dog measuring up. All of us thought she'd live forever because isn't that what perfect dogs do?

I met her relatively late in her life. And she kind of hated me at first. Well, not really, but she was definitely standoffish. I think she was jealous of Gregg's attention. It wasn't until I started running with her one summer that she decided that I might be all right. After one or two runs, she knew the drill. I'd reach for my tennis shoes and she'd already be waiting by the door. Sometimes, as evening approached, if I hadn't made a move for my shoes, she'd look at me expectantly. And every time we went out, without fail, she'd find the cleanest lawn that we could and plant a big old poop. I never learned to carry bags with me, and the two of us would be tearing ass after the poop happened, hoping no one had seen it. I have to admit that I didn't know much about responsible dog ownership in those days.

She was the dog that understood every word you told her, that would follow you to the ends of the earth if she loved you. She liked people just fine but didn't go out of her way to be nice. I remember one time, I was watching her for a week while I lived in San Diego. My roommate said that whenever I left for class, she'd hang out staring at the door until I came back. Once, my roommate tried to tempt her with a hot dog. Bandit was suspicious at first, finally went over to grab it, and then went right back to her position by the door.

On the day she died, we had the vet come to our house. Gregg had to make the final decision, of course, and I'm sorry to say that I pushed him towards it. It was hard for me to see her the way she was. She couldn't move on her own. She had a permanent spot on the rug in front of our back door, or just on the other side of that door if we wanted her outside. Sometimes we'd just leave her on the grass so that she could pee all over herself (because she wouldn't go while we held her up and we figured it was better she went on herself than not at all). By the end, she was getting daily baths, something I know she hated but she couldn't run away from them anymore. I couldn't keep seeing her like that, although for Gregg, I know it was hard to imagine not having her here. She didn't make it easy either -- a few days before the end, we suddenly saw her playing tug with Mia. There was a toy that she wanted and she clearly wasn't giving it up. Mia actually finally gave up. Until the end, she looked at us like she always did, like she knew what we were thinking and like she would live forever.

So I pushed, but when the day came, I had second thoughts too. Even as our local vet was calling to make sure "we were still on", our specialist was calling to discuss Bandit with us one last time. I swear, it was like we were waiting for a stay of execution order from the governor. But what she said - for me, at least - made it more clear that we were doing the right thing. Still, the whole thing sucked. The vet came with a tech and it was all over before we knew it. Before she showed up, Gregg and I stressed over getting a print of Bandit's paw with this Christmas ornament that we've had well, since Christmas, but had never gotten around to doing. We kept messing up the print and snapping at each other.

The only other thing I really remember clearly from it all is that right when they gave her a sedative to knock her out, it was like Bandit was already gone. And she had her tongue stuck to the linoleum. Seems so silly but Gregg and I actually kind of laughed a little because it was like it was stuck on there. And then that was it. Suddenly, the vet was telling us that it was over and they would give us a few minutes and wait outside.
The whole thing didn't quite feel real. It was hard for me to even cry. What's been worse is after. I keep wondering how long I'll be looking for Bandit by the back door. At first, I expected to see her there every time I walked into the kitchen. Now, it'll happen randomly, I'll look out the window and wonder where she is. A few weeks after it had happened, we went to Oregon to visit my family and saw a dog at the farmer's market that looked exactly like a younger version of Bandit. And both Gregg and I caught our breaths a little.

hogging the squeaky toys, of course

on a hike at the ripe old age of 14

Always stylin'

the younger version

a rare moment of closeness (though really she just wanted the bed and figured Mia would move if she just plopped herself down on top of her)

Anyway, may you rest in peace, Bandit. There's never going to be another dog like you, and things just haven't been the same since you left.  Where ever you are now, I hope that there are lots of squeaky balls for you to tear up and rabbits for you to chase.