The Plaster Disaster

Everyone talks about how as new parents we should treasure every moment because she will grow up so fast. We have taken this advice to heart and I bought a baby book to record “firsts,” “hopes and dreams” etc. We also received a baby’s first handprint kit as a shower gift and thought we would celebrate her two-week birthday by making a charming little handprint as a keepsake and a way to preserve this special time when her hands are so darn small and irresistibly cute.

On Sunday afternoon I decided the time to preserve the hand had come so I dutifully followed the instructions to make the plaster mash for her little hand. As the instructions told me to do I waited until she was asleep and when Patrick was around to assist in the imprint process. I poured the white sludge into the mold and set the timer for two minutes so it would be of just the right consistency to capture our little girl’s little hand. The alarm went off and I called Patrick to the kitchen…oh this is going to be so precious I thought, and just look at her sleeping like an angel.

I spread out her hand and place it in the plaster, hold for 5 seconds just as I am told and… crap she pulls in her thumb just as I pull out her hand. Undaunted, we wash her hand, smooth the goo and try again… this time she makes a fist and its ruined, so we try again, and again. By the fourth try she is awake, none to happy with us, and most of her arm, in addition to her hand, is coated in plaster. At this point we decided that the hand was just not going to work so in an effort to preserve anything for posterity we thought we would try a foot. Of course by this time at least 5 minutes have passed and the plaster is starting to harden. Undaunted we decided to try the foot anyway. Well this approach failed miserably too and resulted only in Genevieve screaming and plaster coated foot and leg (this of course is not to mention the plaster on Patrick and I and our kitchen.) Of course right as this happens our pregnant friend Annie comes by with dinner for us, screaming baby as her welcome to our house... maybe pregnant people shouldn't spend too much time with newborns (and certainly not bawling ones), it might make them uneasy about their decision :)

So in the end all of our well-intentioned efforts at posterity preservation of her appendages ended only in her second ever bath (which of course made the poor thing even more upset…. What torturous parents she has)

The birth weight dillema

When they say having a child changes your life they are not kidding around. I used to be the sort of person who was very happy (thank you very much) to be the party pooper who went to bed at 9 pm every night. Eight solid hours (at least) a night was of upmost importance to me. Now I am thrilled to get three hours at a time and actually feeling pretty good with my new brief interval sleeping arrangement. (Although the typos in my blog are a testament to my true mental prowess)

During Evie’s first week Mom and Patrick took turns soothing her at night so I could get a little (more) sleep. On Tuesday however it became clear that really it had to be just me who cared for her at night because (duh) when she wakes up it is because she is hungry and the only one who can take care of that “problem” is me...

On Tuesday we gave Genevieve her first bath, poor thing bawled the entire time… I don’t think she is a fan of the whole bath thing (a true sign she is the progeny of hippies), but darn if she didn’t look cute in her baby bathrobe. On Wednesday we went in for her 1st pediatrician appointment. It was also the first time I went out alone with her. It is pretty funny, here I am a well educated clever enough woman who is worried that she does not have the mental wherewithal to but a baby in a car seat properly without help or some sort of external guidance. I am happy to report that all went well with both the car seat and the pediatrician. When she was weighed she came in at 7 pounds 4 ounces, which worried us (especially me) because all the “sage” advice I have read indicated that she should be back up to her birth weight by two weeks.

So for the next two days I stressed out about if I was providing her enough food to thrive and grow. There is a fair amount of pressure as the sole provder of sustinance for the babe; On Friday the nurse on call from the Birth Center gave us a call to check in and when I told her I was concerned about her weight she very nicely offered to have us come down on Sat. to have her weighed. So yesterday I took Evie down there (after a nice long 2 hour nap I might add… so we were both feeling pretty good about life ☺) and she weighed in at 7 pounds 5 ounces, not quite back to birth weight but gaining and that was all her mom needed to know to make her feel better.

There must be a bumper baby crop & they all want a breast pump

Evie's second week started up in Phoenix with her grandparents. On Monday we decided that it was cruel and unusual to continue to subject my poor parents to our new sleepless reality (and I had an appointment at the Birth Center to check in on my blood pressure) so in a great imitation of the Joads we piled everyone back in the car and headed home to Tucson. And thus began the afternoon of futility....

We were running short on time so we had to go straight to the BC with all of our stuff (including Kita) still in the car. By this time poor Evie had not eaten for two hours and was starting to protest. So here we are in a parking lot (the first of probably many times I will do this) and I am trying to be as inconspicous as possible with my bare boob. I am sure I could have gone inside the BC to feed her but I am not quite ready for that degree of exposure yet. As P atrick so delicately put it I have not bared my breasts in public since college so I am a little out of practice :) My appointment went well my blood pressure is OK with the meds I have been on.... Anyway we decided for efficency sake we would run two simple (ha!0 errands on the way home, Patrick had reserved a book for class at Barnes and Noble and I wanted to buy my breast pump because my aunt Betty had generously given us the money to buy it and so I didn't need to procrastnate on the expenditure any more.

Well nothing is ever simple and sometimes on a Monday things are down right terrible. The bookstore had taken the book off reserve because it had been more than 3 days and somehow the book had subsequently dissapeared from the bookstore... but all of this took close to an hour to discover. All the while I am holding down the ark that is our overfilled car, hey at least it wasn't hot out.

We then go accross the street to a Target... ahh here is where things will turn around, I'll just run in and pick up this bad boy. Nope errr wrong the pump I wanted was the only one sold out.... in my short stint in the Target I did see, however, at least two women with newborn-esque babies in their carts. I fought the urge to check and see if indeed they had beaten me out by seconds to my pump.... but really what would I have done? I am in no shape for a smack down and I knew that there was another (and surely better) Target just down the road. Ah optimism it has always plagued me. Of course the second Target was also sold out, there were however another two (or was it ten, it must have been at least ten) women with babies in that Target! At this point I just laughed my way to the car at the ridculousness of it all and decided that there must be a bumper crop of late March/early April babies all of which have mom's who are desperate to hook themselves up to a human milker machine.

This story does have a happy ending. After a very frustrating afternoon where Evie was so hungry I could not get in a nap and an evening that looked like it would turn into another all nighter for the babe and I, she decided to sleep a record four hours from midnight to 4 am. What more proof does one need that there is some sort of benevolent force in the world looking out for tired moms and hungry babes world over :)

First Week!

Welcome to our baby Genevieve blog! We thought we would put this together as a way to share news and (of course) pictures of our little girl, Genevieve Marie Lacroix.

The first week with her has been great! Consistent sleep is of course a distant memory, unless of course you count the day when she does a great job of sleeping like an angel, go figure. My mom stayed with us during the first week down in Tucson and was an absolute god send. She cooked the most amazing food for us and kept the house and laundry clean for us. It was so nice to be able to focus just on trying to get to know Genevieve and working on the whole breastfeeding gig.

Last Monday we decided to get out of the house and drove up to Mt. Lemmon. We piled a bag full of warm clothes for the baby and a great picnic but forgot to bring any warm clothes for ourselves so our picnic ended up as a quick eat and run back to the car because it was so very cold! Regardless the drive (and getting out of the house) was wonderful.

Mid last week Patrick and Kelly's Mom went out to pick up some supplies at Target (it seems like just about every day there is a need for some other little thing :) Kelly stayed at home with the baby, figuring a trip to Target needed no supervision.... Oh how wrong was she! Patrick and Mary came home with all sorts of great useful stuff and.... Evie's first all pink, very frilly, little girlie outfit! Ahh I guess the anti-pink movement was not to last.

On Thursday we went up to Phoenix to spend the weekend with my parents (and to gain access to cable which makes the long nights of fussy Evie so much more tolerable!). We have found that our little girl is certainly the night owl (she must take after her dad) which has caused us to learn all sorts of new things that only the insomniacs of this world know.... who knew that there were so many different drugs for sexual enhancement out there?