Plastic Mother

Meeting Uncle Will

Well we made it to Rhode Island. Jack handled the 3+ hour drive relatively well, primarily because I decided to introduce him to a pacifier. I'm feeling totally guilty about it, but the kid is a sucking machine, and the fact that I wasn't going to be able to give him the boob during the car ride was kind of a recipe for disaster. So he grudgingly accepted the plastic substitute until we could stop in Connecticut and I could feed him. I've used it only twice since then, both times after he's nursed for over an hour and is still giving me the frantic sucking face. I know he's not hungry, since when I put him on the boob he sucks like twice and then just hangs out, and after that much nursing my nipples are not feeling their best, so I pulled out the paci and gave it to him. He sucks for like 20 minutes, falls asleep, and then spits it out and sleeps the rest of his nap. It seems like an innocuous aid, but I have visions of him being 10 years old and still needing it, and I feel like a totally inadequate mother for not being able to soothe him somehow on my own without relying on the plastic mother to help me. But what's done is done, and I'll just try and use it only when absolutely necessary. Any other veteran mothers who might be reading this, tell me you used these things and all was fine. I'm not terrible for giving it to him, right? Only time will tell...

RI has been delightful so far, other than the first night, when we had 2 not so pleasant experiences. Jack and I were asleep in my bedroom on the 3rd floor, and I wake up for some reason. There's a light on next to me on the bedside table, and I see this thing flying around my room. In my sleep-addled state, I think "How did a bird get into my room?" and then I realize it's not a bird, it's a BAT. Now, for any of you who have ever been in my bedroom in RI, you know that a) it is not a large room and b) because it has slanted ceilings from being on the third floor, there's not a whole lot of ceiling space for a bat to fly, which means it's flight path is way, way too close to my head. Readers of my Morocco blog may remember my previous bat incident, which scarred me for life, so I of course start shrieking and flailing around in my bed, dive to the floor and try to get over to the bassinet where Jack is sleeping. The bat keeps flying at us and I keep trying to swat at it with a pillow, at one point shouting at it, "You get away from that baby!" because the only thing more horrifying than an bat flying at you is a bat flying at your baby. I manage to grab Jack, who is totally nonchalantly looking around, calm as can be, while his mother is still shrieking. We get outside the bedroom and I slam the door behind us and go into the other bedroom. After feeding Jack (because bat or not, the kid still expects to be fed when he wakes up) I go wake up my dad and make him go kill it, which he does, and we return to the scene of the attack and go back to bed. 

Two short hours later, when the little man wakes up again, I feed him (again) and then he has a bout of projectile vomiting. I had never seen anyone, especially a baby, do this before, and let me tell you, it is FREAKY. First of all, that is WAY too much liquid to be coming out of something so little - I don't know how he even fit all that milk in there in the first place. To give you a sense of scope, he was laying in my lap and after letting loose this plume of vomit, I was completely drenched and he didn't have a drop on him, that's how far he shot it. It was like the Exorcist, totally weird and unnatural. So of course I look on the internet (at 3am) for what the hell this could be and after reading about GERD and stomach problems and all this other stuff, I get completely paranoid for the next 2 days, watching for any other signs of trouble, but there hasn't been any more instances of it, and he's still eating like a champ, so I think it was just a case of overfeeding and not burping enough. I've now turned into a burping nazi and I fear he's going to have a black and blue back at his next doctor's appt and I'll probably get arrested for child abuse, but at least the kid won't be gassy. 

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure, my mom bought me this thing that you're supposed to put over the baby's little penis that stops them from peeing on themselves. As you can see, it's absolutely ridiculous and Jack seems to realize this, since he kicks it off almost immediately every time.