3 Pacifiers, 2 Rants, and a Trailer

Rant #1

Dear Strangers, 

Please stop telling me how small my child is and then proceed to ask 20 more questions about how much she weighed at birth vs. now, what she's eating, if she's peeing/pooping, etc. I assure you that any parent that has a child that is underweight is acutely aware of that fact and is doing everything in their power to fix it. Also, I promise that they are talking to their medical professionals and I highly doubt that you will be able to diagnose and "fix" the problem while standing in the grocery store check-out line buying your four obese children Doritos and Coke. So after saying "How old is your baby?" go ahead and say "Oh, she's so little" but please stop there. Thanks. 

P.S. This not does not apply to friends or family with babies that are larger and/or older than Lily, just to judgmental strangers. 

Rant #2

Dear Medela and Target Nursing Clothing Producers, 

Please check your sizes. As someone who was a pre-pregnancy size Medium (sometimes Large in pants) and who has lost 23 of the 30 pounds gained during pregnancy, I disagree with your determination of my new size as Extra Large, particularly in bra sizes. There are many, many women out there with breasts much larger than mine that I would classify as Extra Large long before I fall into that category. Where are they buying nursing clothes? As proof I have included a photo. Thanks.

This week we experimented with pacifiers because after feeding Lily wants to just lie there and suck and suck and suck and suck for hours while she sleeps. If I try to take her off, she wakes up and screams until she's sucking again. So, for my sanity and my poor body's sake, we decided to try a pacifier. There are about 80 million different kinds out there, so we decided to start with three to see 1) if it would work at all and 2) which kind she liked. Turns out she's not such a huge fan. Today was the first day we had moderate success with a Nuk Orthodontic Pacifier. All the others were abject failures. After feeding today I took her off before she was very asleep and quickly gave her the pacifier. She  just wanted to play with it for a little while and then took to sucking it quite vigorously with some active management on my part. She would suck and then spit it out and then suck and spit it out over and over again, but she wasn't getting upset it was more like a game. Then she decided to keep it in her mouth for about half an hour and passed out. As soon as she was asleep it fell out of her mouth and she just kept on sleeping for another couple of hours. I tried this same trick this afternoon to no avail. It was like she was onto us. So, we'll keep trying. 

Also this last week Joe's parents came to visit us. It was nice to have them around to help with some meals and for companionship. And I am very grateful that they were willing to drive a U-Haul trailer full of about 600 lbs of our stuff back to Chicago. They're still on the road, so I hope things are going ok! Here's a picture of them as they're leaving their hotel on Thursday morning. 

Finally, Lily had another well-baby appointment yesterday. She gained some weight and is now up to 6 lbs 0.5 oz, almost her birth weight. She's also gotten more than an inch taller and is now 19.75 inches. The pediatrician is not too concerned about her slow weight gain, even though she's only in the 3rd percentile. I started pumping today so we can supplement with a bottle of breast milk in the evenings when she is most ravenous. It's hard to figure out when to pump though when all she wants to do is stay sucking after a feeding or has passed out on my lap and does not like to be moved once she's asleep. So far I managed to do it once today and have produced less than an ounce for my efforts. I know it will take a while to build up my supply, so I'm trying to be patient. 

Here are this week's pictures. One thing that does usually calm Lily down is putting her in the Mei Tai carrier and walking/bouncing/swaying around while shushing in her ear for about 20 minutes, and then she goes to sleep. Usually she's pretty curled up and sucking on her fist so you can't really see her face, but this particular afternoon she was feeling more relaxed. It reminds me of some of my high school students when they fell asleep in class. 

And this one was taken right after being fed and having a bath. She was pretty excited about listening to The Talk of the Nation on NPR on Friday afternoon.