Babies do a bunch of weird stuff.  Babies spit up.  I think everyone knows that.  But sometimes...they spit up out of their nose.  Last week the baby was fussing and fussing and when I peeked in on him he had a trail of milk coming out of his nose.  Well, I assumed it was milk-either that or baby Chedda has a coke problem. 

Also babies have immature circulatory systems.  This was the explanation for why one of my cute little one's arm was blackish purple when I went to change him and completely normal colored by the time I'd called the doctor in a panic. 

Babies are like disgusting men you'd never date.  I'll be looking into his sweet little eyes and he will let out a burp I swear came out of a grown man at a Fraternity kegger.  There's never any need to wonder if the baby's gone poop because I can hear it three rooms down.  It sounds like a wet earthquake explosion.  You walk in, pull open the diaper and sure enough there's some strange lumpy colored poo leaking out of his diaper and smeared up to the back of his neck.  Whatever you do-do NOT buy cheap diapers in bulk.  They're really just engineered to be a funnel for getting his poo of of his butt and into his socks.  And if you're me you'll feel guilty about throwing away all 200 or so of them so you'll just continue to use them and pray that he doesn't squirt out pea soup onto your new pants.

Babies are born with ginormous sex organs.  Or at least baby Chedda was.  We've got a picture of him right after birth-the nurse is holding him up and all you can look at is his big red balls.  I left the decision about cir****cision up to Jim as I don't have a penis and didn't feel strongly either way.  (Initially I was worried because I don't think I've ever seen an uncir****sized penis-it kinda looked like a rolled up joint-not that I've ever seen one of those either.)  We ended up deciding to cir****size.  The doctor took our little biscuit away and when he came back I cried.  Not because I was concerned about the pain we'd put our little fellow through.  Just because his penis was so cute.  A little miniature version of the real thing.  (Must make scrapbook page with that caption to show future girlfriends when son forgets to do household chores.)

Babies love to suck.  You'd think they'd get scared with this this mound of flesh that's bigger than their head coming at them-but Chedda just gets all excited and starts sucking away.  Sometimes he misses and sucks away at my belly fat.  Once he gets started he has a hard time stopping.  I know he's about done when he starts to grimace and make little grunting moaning sounds.  Then he starts kind of batting my boobies and starts shaking his head frantically from side to side before he is able to open his mouth and pop the nipple out.  Speaking of nipples, what's with the constant nipplage?  You'd think I'd bought Lojay's fake nipples the way I'm sticking out.  I finally bought some plastic nipple covers so I could go out to the store without people thinking I'm filming the intro to a porno. 

Of course all the weird crap babies do is balanced out by the weird stuff their new parents do.  Chedda's baby daddy keeps asking if we should get him into baby modeling.  And we're so obsessed with getting the perfect picture that I'm afraid Chedda's gonna think we are a one eyed giant lens type of parent.  I've avoided it so far, but I think his poop sounds are so funny that I totally want to take a movie and post it on You Tube.  I mean seriously, WTF is wrong with me?  Jim is obsessed with the nasal aspirator-whenever he gets a chance he's sucking snot out of Chedda's little nostrils.  And I find myself practically sticking my entire nose up baby's butt sniffing for poop. 

I've been a prisoner on my couch for the last month and a half.   Before the baby was born, I found a glider rocking chair at a garage sale for 25.00.  It wasn't the most beautiful rocker-but it was cheap and came with the footstool for free.  I figured I'd learn how to sew-and sew me up a cool slip cover for the rocker.  (hahahahaha)  The first week home,  I tried to use the rocker.  Unfortunately, my butt and the breast feeding pillow didn't fit the chair.  So I took up residence on the couch.  I set up my glass of water, reading material, piles of junk mail to go through etc...Then as I'm feeding, I just throw my trash on the floor for Jim to pick up.  I suppose I could put a garbage can there but it's kinda fun sailing the 453rd piece of campaign literature across the room.

Once done feeding, I have a little angel baby laying on my lap-the problem was figuring out how to transfer him from my lap to crib without waking the baby up.  So frequently, I would just sit with the baby on my lap until the next feeding occurred.  Add to this the dog's new fascination with my lap and you're likely to find me sitting on the couch with baby on top, pillow and Maxx snuggled up on my lap underneath the pillow.  I've become a chair for babies and dogs. 

Eventually, I'd get up and attempt to do something-but then the baby would cry and I'd be trying to clear the dishwasher with the baby in one arm.  It got even more difficult when I attempted to do anything while carrying baby in one arm and attempting to soothe him by placing my other finger in the baby's mouth.  We call that giving the baby the finger.  He gives us the real finger probably because of the crappy diapers we bought him.

We measured baby Chedda at the local pumpkin patch-hey as long as we're weighing pumpkins let's check out how big he's getting, right?  And since he is now over 8 pounds, I decided to try the baby carrier my sister in law sent.  Ahhhhhhhhhhh, heaven.  Of course I'm not completely free-since I still have a baby attached to my chest.  But it hides the leftover haagen daz belly and frees up a couple of arms so I can check email, read books and clean. 

With all my new found freedom, I was able to find these helpful rules to baby caring.

I stopped by work for a Halloween pot luck with the baby today.  One of the kiddos that I see was coming in the afternoon so I stuck around so he could see baby Lucas.  He remembered Lucas's name and told me how cute he was.  Then he smiled at me, poked my belly and asked excitedly, "Is there a brother in there?"

Five weeks.  I wish someone had told me that it would take five weeks to get breastfeeding established to the point where it was rarely painful.  I thought I had it all figured out around two weeks but then was stricken with more of the cracked nipples and a case of the "gawd, my boobs are on fire."  Spent an hour waiting for the doctor only to have him tell me that sometimes breastfeeding isn't pleasant.  Glad I got to hand over twenty bucks for that advice.  On the bonus side, I had my husband calling me to ask, "How are your breasts doing today."  The constant burning pain finally left after five weeks, and now it's not too bad except for the occasional pinched nipple feeling.

Now I have the problem of the leaking boobs.  This morning I woke up after a good five hours of uninterrupted sleep to find that I'd squirted milk through the sleep bra and nightshirt, onto my jammie pants and also managed to soak a good part of the comforter.  You'd think I was sleeping on a water bed the way I leak in the morning.  But I suppose I should be thankful that I haven't woken up to the dog cleaning up the spill.

Also, I will start leaking when the baby cries.  WTF is that all about?  I'm hoping it's only related to baby Chedda or I will be in for a time when I return to work with crying screaming children in December.  Although squirting them in the head with a booby water gun will probably stun them into silence.

Last night I was reading a baby magazine where I came upon an article on the uses for excess breastmilk.  I'm slightly surprised that anyone would have leftover's as I find Ipump for about thirty minutes to get a couple of tablespoons of milk.  Anyhow, it suggested that a couple of squirts up the nose could cure a stuffy nose or a couple of squirts in the eye could help treat conjuctivitis.  Could you imagine what people would say if they saw me shove a nipple up Chedda's nose in the hopes of clearing his sinuses?  Okay,. I realize they probably meant with an eye dropper-but it's more funny to think of my aiming my big tata's at the babies eyes/nose.  I wonder if it only works on your baby or if I could take my milk making machine out on the road for a little extra cash?  Maybe I should stake out the local Minute Clinic and charge 10.00 vs. an average 20.00 copay to cure the common cold. 

Not poltergeists of course-the door to door religion salesmen.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any Gabster celebrities to come to the house and help entertain me and them.  I thought about wearing the African mask I bought last year in Vegas but ended up just wearing regular clothing.

What ended up being more fun than the actual meeting was pretending that I was seriously considering joining a new religion.  They had called that morning to verify our appointment and plus to tell me they were going to bring some friends (fair enough, that was my original plan as well.)  Jim came running upstairs asking if I'd told some missionary's to come over (I like that they called themselves missionary's-I probably shoulda wore my mask and met them in a grass hut in the backyard.)  I confirmed that I had-and when I saw his disturbed face-acted like that was a perfectly normal thing to do. 

He was really concerned about them coming over-and kept encouraging me to run down and hide in the basement like he was going to do.  (why the basement and not just any other room in the house? I'm not sure.)  Emjoying his discomfort, I decided to just let them come. 

While I didn't follow suggestions to break out the baby feeding boobies during the meeting-I did allow the dog to run free and terrorize a little kid they brought with them.  And I let the baby cry during their spiel.  The dog kept jumping up and licking them when they were trying to pray.  But in the end, I decided to not join their door bell ringing faith.