Newsletter: Month Two

Dear Ian, Today you turn two months old and you seem like a totally different baby than just a few weeks ago. In addition to the developmental milestones you've accomplished, we're starting to see the beginnings of your personality take shape.

You are a night owl! Last night you went to bed around 1am and slept until 8:30, only nursing once in that time and not even waking up for it. You're still in the bed with us and I couldn't be happier about it. The cribs (one upstairs and one downstairs) tend to hold more laundry these days than infants. Your father is still worried that we may crush you in your sleep, but I have confidence in your resilience. That and I never ever move at night so you just sleep on my side with me.

At about the five week mark we started putting you in cloth diapers. It's going really well so far and you seem happy with them. The only downside is the size small diapers that are supposed to last until you're six months old are already too small for you. So we've stocked up on medium diapers and haven't looked back.

Speaking of your size, you are a giant! As of last Thursday when we stopped by the pediatrician to get your belly button looked at, you were 13 lb 9 oz. We had several of the parents from our birth class over this past weekend and all their babies are pint-sized compared to you. I'm sure that I'm biased, but you are also the sweetest, cutest and most easy-going baby ever. You really are spoiling us.

I started going back to work "part time" as of two weeks ago and you've been coming with me to the office. You have been a model employee and I only shut my office door to nurse or if I think you're giggling too loudly and might disturb others. The last few weeks have been hard on your mother, trying to juggle work responsibilities when all I want to do is just curl up with you in bed. If someone would pay me to smooch you all day, we'd be millionaires, but alas work continues on. You start day care on January 4th and I'm going to miss you terribly during the day. I only went out for a quick shopping trip this afternoon while you stayed home with Daddy and I kept feeling like I was missing something everywhere I went. Thankfully your day care is across the street so I can hopefully come visit you a bit to help keep my heart from breaking.

It's almost Christmas and I admit we haven't bought you a single gift yet. Santa will surely bring you a few things since you've been so incredibly good and I'm sure your Nana has a few treats in mind for you. At the moment your greatest joy is following the ceiling fan, so we'll have to see if one of those will fit in Santa's sleigh. Dorcas and her husband David came over today and brought you a hand sewn quilt as well as a beautiful pottery bowl. It's overwhelming to us all of the people who love you so much and they've barely had a chance to know you. You will never lack for family and friends in your life if you continue to be as charming as you are.

I have erred on the side of assuming that others are not as enamored with you as I am, mostly because I am positively over the moon for you. I don't hand you off to others to hold much and I admit a little of that is because I enjoy keeping all those snuggles for myself. As you get bigger, though, I should learn to share you with the rest of the world. You are too fantastic of a person to keep under wraps.

Love, Mama

Confident starfish

Long ago, I read some ridiculous article about how you could tell "your man's" personality by how he sleeps. If he slept on his side in a fetal position that meant he was insecure. If he slept on his stomach he was hiding something. And if he slept on his back he was confident. I can't remember which position meant what really other than sleeping on ones back was a sign of confidence. Rich said that my sleeping position is confident starfish because I sleep on my back with arms and legs akimbo, taking up as much of the bed as possible. He risks an elbow to the temple each night.

It appears we have our own little starfish on our hands. When not swaddled and left to choose his own sleep position, he tends to mirror my own poses and regularly pokes me in the side with his elbow or fist. We're raising a very cute and confident little boy.

Preparing for day care

On Wednesday, I stopped by the day care to fill out Ian's name and age now that he has them and get details on what all I need to provide for him on his first day. He needs a new crib sheet and blanket each Monday (along with his "tuition" check) as well as a change of clothes. I also have to provide all his milk and diapers for the day. I was surprised that they told me I had to portion the breast milk out into bottles ahead of time because they wouldn't handle "bodily fluids". I'm not sure if they understand that Ian himself produces a fair amount of bodily fluids on his own. They'll clean up the spit up if it comes out of him but won't touch the milk that made it before it goes in him. After doing a lot of homework on how many ounces to put in each bottle and how many to send, I felt less annoyed about all that. The best advice I saw was one ounce for each hour he is away from me, so we're going to start out with three bottles of 3oz each. I just would hate to waste milk or have him go hungry. They want the milk thawed versus frozen so whatever he doesn't use I'm going to have to dump. Good thing I can produce a lot of milk! I'm not giving them any formula as backup but am just going to keep some frozen at the office since I'm only across the street. My co-workers will love me! No more complaining if we run out of half-and-half.

As we were standing there, I reminded them that we use cloth diapers and the reaction was blank stares. Despite telling me they didn't think it would be a problem earlier, the woman in charge now said she didn't think they could use them because it would be a health violation to have soiled diapers around. I asked what they do with their disposable diapers and she acknowledged that they just throw them in a trash can but they take them to the dumpster occasionally. I assured her my wet bag contains the smell and they can just store them in that for me. She was not convinced.

I showed her a sample diaper (since most people assume they're the flat ones from decades ago) and she seemed put out by the whole thing, snapping and unsnapping it as if it were designed by Mr. Rubik himself. She just kept saying, "I just don't think we can do it." She also said that he would be around other children and the cloth diapers would leak. I gently reminded her that I've had more leaks with the disposables and no leaks with the cloth diapers.

I left there feeling really discouraged about the whole experience. This is where I'm supposed to leave my child in just a few weeks and I just wanted him to get the same quality of food and care he's getting now. I was feeling stuck.

Research saved the day, though. I went home and looked up Virginia's state regulations on child care and it says that you can use cloth diapers as long as you provide a sealed container for the dirty diapers and take it home each day. After chatting with the woman at the cloth diaper store, I also found out it's illegal for the day care to refuse to use cloth diapers on my child.

I'm not going to go in waving legal papers at them next week. I'll try the gentler route and will bring a sample wet bag to show them how well it works. And if they still gripe about it, then I'll remind them about their obligations to me and my child.

I swear, I don't try to make these things complicated. I just always seem to be doing something they've never dealt with before.