Dairy Free?

Macaroni and cheese is my favorite food. Just plain cheese comes in second, followed by grilled cheese, and then maybe cheeseburgers. I also enjoy milkshakes and ice cream quite a bit. I also really like corn dogs, but that is beside the point. The point is, I love me some cheese. So, it clearly makes me the best mom in the history of momness that I am willing to give up dairy for 2 weeks for Miller. Yep, I said it.

The thing is, she seems to have a bit of the colic c-word that I refuse to say, because I don't accept it. I don't accept mystery conditions that doctors have never been able to find causes for and don't understand and don't have medicines for and can't fix. I put the c word in a category with fybromyalgia and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I apologize if you have either of those. I am not saying you don't have something wrong with you that hurts, I am just saying I don't accept doctors giving diagnoses that basically mean, "I don't know what's wrong with you and I can't give you medicine or even try to fix it."

Anyway, I digress. I just can't say, "Oh well, she has the c-word and we'll just listen to her scream all the time and eat dinner in shifts for the next 2-4 months." I think that is stupid. So, I am trying everything in the world to make it stop. According to some people on the internets who probably are not doctors and probably have no idea what they are talking about, 5-15% of babies have a milk protein sensitivity that can worsen c-word symptoms. So, I have been earing stuff like this:

I went to Whole Foods and got rice milk, rice cheese, some type of non-dairy hippie butter, and actual rice ice cream. I also happened to be wearing a yoga-themed t-shirt that day too. I felt like a huge poser at the checkout. I really wanted to confess to the check out lady that actually eat trash on the regular and sometimes I even put a piece of junk mail in the trash instead of the recycling bin and this was just an experiment. But I didn't.

Anyway, Miller has actually gotten somewhat better in the last week, but not amazingly better and I really don't think it is cheese making her cry. She has also changed a lot in other ways and had lots more happy wake-time throughout the day. I think she is just growing up (tear.) I just don't see how I could have kid with an aversion to cheese!

So, despite the fact that the Mint Carob Chip Rice Dream "ice cream" is actually quite delicious, I plan to continue eating Alicia Silverstone non-leg-shaving-type food for the rest of this week, and this weekend, I will have a cheese-fest. If she screams bloody murder immediately following, we will blame the cheese. I realize this is an imperfect experiment, but what else am I gonna do? I'll let you know how it goes.

PS- I am sure a lot of you have opinions on this subject. Unless you are a doctor, and I mean an actual MD not someone with a PhD in philosophy or something, I don't really want your opinion. I have heard waaaaaay to many opinions regarding what I am eating and the c-word and all they do is make me feel guilty for eating at all. At one point, I had decided to live on bread and water, but then I read that Miller's crying could be a response to a wheat or gluten allergy. I can't live on just water. Sorry.

PPS- The image of mac and cheese is actually from macaroni-and-cheese.net. There seems to be a whole web site about mac n' cheese-how exciting is that?

One Month Old!

Miller had her first big birthday on Sunday-she is 1 month old! She asked if we could go to Monterrey's for lunch and to TJ Maxx to pick out an outfit, so that is what we did. Not surprisingly, she chose a very stylish Ralph Lauren sleeper. She also got a new bouncy seat, because we didn't have enough baby seat type crap around here. Obviously.

Sunday night, we celebrated with the traditional 1 month birthday cake decorated with the traditional "my-mom-forgot-to-buy-icing-so-she-used-leftover-from-God-knows-when-white-chocolate-chips." All babies have that on their 1 month birthday. Duh. As you can see in the picture below, Miller was thrilled.

Monday we went for her 1 month check-up. I will now provide you with a boring list of facts that I will try to make more interesting via my witty commentary.

1. Miller weighs 9lbs 12oz (65th percentile.) She was 7lbs 9oz at birth. As you can see, she is well on her way to becoming a baby sumo wrestler. The doctor suggested that maybe we ease up a little on the boob milk. Oops. Maybe mommy should ease up on the corn dogs and then the milk would be a little less fattening. Just a thought.

2. She has grown more 3/4 of an inch, and is up to 21 and 1/4 inches (56th percentile). Fred and are still trying to figure out how we created a normal-height baby. She will probably reach her adult height by her 7th birthday.

3. The doctor said she definitely has the reflux. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, all of you people who were saying she had colic and annoying me about what I ate that supposedly gives the baby gas, etc. She has a real disease that makes her cry, not stupid made-up, we-don't-know-why-you're-baby-keeps-crying-colic. She is supposedly taking Zantac now, but she spits it all out. I don't think it is all that effective when applied to the chin and neck. We will see.

4. If anyone is just dying to know (cause I know you are), her head measured 36 inches (27th percentile.) It appears that her head size will be more in line with that of her Uncle Blake rather than her cousin Wade.

In other news, she had her first real bath this weekend. Her cord stump was a little slow to fall off, so she had been sponge-bathing it for a while. As you can see, she totally loved it. Baby books are so full of crap. "A crying baby can be calmed with a warm, relaxing bath..." Clearly.

I think I will put this one in her senior yearbook ad.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for. No baby blog is complete without a monthly photo of said baby beside a giant stuffed animal.

As you can see, Miller was really excited about this. Is anyone noticing a pattern? She does smile sometimes. Mostly when she toots.

Cleaning Schedule

Does the fact that I am about to post this on my refrigerator make me a huge nerd?

What if I told you I really want to laminate it?

And in unrelated news, Miller just spit up a fountain. It hit me in the face. Then, she smiled and went back to sleep. I love her.

Reality Check

Before Miller was born, I had a lot of little fantasies in my head of how things were going to be. I knew things wouldn't be perfect and I knew she would cry, but I thought Fred and I were going to sail through this whole newborn thing like the champion parents we are.

For those of you who don't know, Fred is a bit of a baby whisperer. You can usually hand him a crying baby and the baby will stop crying immediately. It used to make me feel like a jerk when this happened with other people's babies, but I thought it sure would come in handy with Miller. Well, guess what? Apparently she is immune to both Fred's baby-whispering powers and my super-mommy skills and sometimes, the kid just won't stop crying!

Before she was born, I pictured Fred, me, and Miller enjoying evening strolls with Pickles and Rocky each night and her sleeping quietly in our arms while we watched educational television programming The Bachelor Pad and Jersey Shore.

Here is a list of things I wasn't prepared for....

1. the stupid NICU

2. thrush AND a cold all before 4 weeks

3. FIVE straight hours of crying

4. stroller hatred (We have now discovered we CAN walk the dogs, but only if Miller is in the Baby Bjorn. The stroller pretty much makes her scream bloody murder.)

5. going to the grocery store by myself (I accidentally stole some chicken that was hiding under Miller's car seat, because I was so distracted by her crying which turned me into that lady with the crying baby in the grocery store. I didn't discover the chicken until we were getting in the car and there was no way I was going back in! Judge me if you will.)

6. Starbucks drive-thru embarrassment (Apparently babies who are perfectly calm in the car will turn into wailing banshees once your car stops in a drive-thru with 4 other cars in front of you and behind you. There was no way out. And I wanted my Frappucino! The nice man at the window is now my BFF after telling me he was sure I was a great mom AND that I didn't look like I had just had a baby. And he said Miller'e name was beautiful. I was so distracted and embarrassed that I didn't even tip him!)

So, needless to say, things haven't gone exactly as planned. But Saturday night, I got a little taste of the perfect parenting bliss I had imagined. Instead of looking like this:

Miller looked like this:

(excuse the blue swaddler, it was a hand-me-down.)

Fred made a yummy dinner that looked like this:

And our TV looked like this (for several hours!):

And our dogs did this:

And that was enough to get me through the week! (I think...it's only Tuesday.)

3 Weeks Old!

Miller celebrated her 3 week birthday by watching the Gamecocks play their first game of the season. It seems like she might be a lucky charm, since we beat Southern Miss 41-13! Here is a picture of Miller all ready to watch her first football game....

Now, to be completely honest, this is how she spent the majority of the game...

That is pretty much how she spends the majority of her time. Well, that and screaming. She has had a bit of a rough week. We have thrush and she has a little cold, and it is making her pretty unhappy. Which makes her scream. Which makes us unhappy. Hopefully, it will clear up soon!

Birth Story-Part 3 (The End!)

Sweet Miller is FINALLY asleep and we got zero sleep last night. I am under strict orders from the husband to rest today, so I thought I would try to quickly finish writing about Miller's birth. I want to finish so I can get on to posting about all of her current cuteness. (Except for last night she wasn't very cute when she was demon-possessed and screaming all night.)

OK, so this is the bad part of the story. I am going to tell the quick version. The day after Miller was born, some doctor that we had never seen before came in and told us that Miller's blood culture was growing something. They did not know what it was yet, but he said it could be anything from a contaminated sample to SPINAL MENINGITIS! They immediately took Miller to the NICU to do a spinal tap and told us she would probably have to stay there for 10 days to get antibiotics regardless of what the bacteria turned out to be. Needless to say, we were extremely upset and worried and had no idea what was wrong with our baby girl.

Well, to make a long story short, NOTHING was wrong with her. The moron that did her blood culture did it incorrectly and took the blood of her skin rather than straight from her vein. The bacteria that had grown could have been anything in the world, because the culture was done right after she was born and she hadn't even had a bath yet! When they were finally able to identify the bacteria 24 hours later, the doctors said it had to have come off her skin and that there was basically no way that whatever it was would have been in her blood. Poor Miller had a spinal tap, several heel sticks and IV's, was hooked up to monitors, spent days in the NICU, and was unable to be breastfed and forced to drink formula all because of one nurse's incompetence! I still get SO mad just thinking about it. If anyone knows a good medical malpractice lawyer, please let me know!

Anyway, once they figured out that Miller was a normal healthy baby, just like we figured all along seeing as how she had no symptoms of any kind, they finally let us take her home. We took her home on Sunday and were back at the pediatrician on Tuesday just for a check. She was already almost back to her birth weight.

We are SO glad that Miller is okay, and I am working on being a little less paranoid about her health. They scared me so much and treated her like a sick baby and now I am worrying about everything. Stupid hospital.

Does this baby look sick to you?

Part 2

So, I got my epidural and was happy as could be. Here I am eating ice chips while my mom and Fred ate Chick Fil A. Didn't bother me a bit!

I did steal some secret sips of Coke when the nurse left the room-shhhh. After that, I don't really remember much, but somehow a lot of hours passed and finally, the Nurse Tammy said it was time to push. Again, I will spare you the details, but eventually a baby came out. Go figure! The first words out of my mouth were, "Is she still a girl?" And she was-thank God! I was also really pleasantly surprised that the awesome nurses respected my wish to not have a nasty baby covered in blood and God knows what else thrust upon me at birth. If that makes me a bad mom, then so be it. I am scared of all that junk that's on them when they come out! They washed her up and then brought her back to me. See, everyone, they WILL do that if you ask.

On a side note, that made me think of another funny thing. Poor Fred, he did not want to see what was going on anymore than I wanted him to. Well, let's just say he was forced to hold a leg and he got a little more of a show than he bargained for. I kept asking him if he was ok, because that is just the kind of selfless (drugged) person that I am! He really, really did not want to cut the cord though. Again, I totally understand because that is disgusting. The nurse said he would change his mind, but when the doctor came in he said something to the effect of, "I don't see what the big deal is about that. You don't have to." I, of course, informed them all that if my husband was going to be doing medical procedures, then we would like a discount on our bill. Needless to say, Fred did NOT have to cut the cord. Two points for us.

So, they cleaned her up and brought her to me, and the kid didn't look like she could have possibly come from me and Fred. She had dark hair, dark skin, and dark blue eyes. Luckily, she had a beard, so Fred knew she was his. And here is what she looked like....

Ha ha, only kidding. Here is what she really looked like.

Anyway, she weighed 7'9" and was 20.5" long- who would have thought Fred and I could make a baby that big? I wasn't kidding about my ribs hurting. There was a BIG kid in there!

Next came the best part of the whole day- wonderful Nurse Tammy brought me a Coke with crushed ice in a Styrofoam cup with a straw. For those of you who don't know, that is basically my favorite thing in the world.

Right after she was born, she had her first visit from Gretchen and Julianne. Yay! She has had lots more visitors since, but Mommy got a little slack with the picture-taking. Oh well.

Next, they wheeled us down the hall to our Mom/Baby room. Some super-awesome nurses brought us turkey sandwiches, a box of snacks, AND some chocolate. I was STARVING. And then we got to hang out with our sweet baby.