Where is the Missing Croc??

I spent a precious chunk of time this morning hunting for 19-month-old Estelle's croc. I still have not found it. I am the keeper-together-of-things in our house. No one else regularly inventories toys, toy pieces, shoes, socks, ectcetera, but me. In my overtaken Mommy brain, concerns for the mundane, such as household items inventory, occupy a significant slice of gray matter real estate.

(Insert pie chart of my brain usage here)

Sometimes I feel badly about the smallness of my thoughts and the time I spend on activities that seem so unimportant in in the face of life and death and other people's big accomplishments and money-making. But if I don't keep the order of our household, chaos waits patiently, ready to overtake our family life, so I do this unpaid-in-money job for our basic well-being and hunting for that effing Croc is part of it.

Someday I'll Long for These Days and Nights

By the time bedtime arrives for Donovan and Estelle, I often yearn to get through it as quickly as possible so I can start my evening. About two hours to myself. Tonight, while I sat on the edge of Donovan's bed and he showed me how to look through his "telescope" (a long, squared, plastic tube for a bunch of glow-in-the-dark bugs) it occurred to me that at some future time, when I'm elder and my life is quiet, I might wish to be back in this Fishtown rowhouse, when Donovan was three and half and Estelle only 17 months old.

There are many sweet moments throughout our days together, but those moments are so intertwined with aggravating demands, whining, and constant service to these two little people, that it's easy to gloss past some of the surprising things they do, the little firsts, the funny words or actions.

Tonight I had to scold Donovan pretty hard for making noise while Estelle was falling asleep -- waking her up, I'm pretty sure. In his dark room, I was pointing at him and speaking in gruff staccato sentences, telling him "I'm angry!" because he's been talking back, ignoring me, and pestering Estelle all day. He started crying and I was a little surprised because he's become seemingly immune to scolding lately.

Sighing, I just wanted to leave and be done with him for the day. All the scolding, correcting, food preparation, cleanup, pickup, and demands-for-attention, all the day long, just sucks the juice out of me. But then he asked me this: "Even if you're angry, do you even still love me?" That broke my stony, angry spell. Yes, yes Donovan! I told him I wanted to hug for a long time and he said, "Sure."

After our long hug, he asked me if Daddy and I got lonely before he and Estelle were there. I told him "sometimes," and that I sometimes got lonely before I met Daddy, when I lived alone. He then reassured me. "I will always be with you all the time so you won't be lonely." We moved onto the insect-container-telescope, but as I watched him showing me how I should look through it, "lock" the top, and put the string handle around my wrist, I was fast-forwarded to my old-age, when Donovan's life is in full swing. I see myself eagerly awaiting his visits, his calls, the time he can spend with me, wishing for more and thinking back to this time when his life was completely adjoined to mine and I was reeling from so much of his time.

Celebrity Fixation

We've been watching "Girls" and I keep thinking about Lena Dunham, not in a lesbian way, but in an admiring/impressed/admittedly envious way. In my "research" to understand how someone so young has achieved so much success, I've googled her name enough times now that my search bar populates her name after only typing "Len". I wish I capitalized on the funny, raw, and sometimes shocking events of my single 20's -- and 30's -- years.

Eating Lunch Straight from the Pot

Saving time in the kitchen.

They're both asleep! It's 2:41 pm. I'm finally eating lunch. Gulping leftover meatballs and spaghetti straight from the pot. One less dish to clean. I've never done that before -- eating from pot. I hope it doesn't become a habit.

The Angry Lady Behind Our House

Donovan calls her the "Angry Lady." And she is often angry, loudly spewing shockingly foul-mouthed diatribe for an old lady. She lives on Oxford Street, one block north of our street, so she's not really our neighbor, but the backyard of our row house is one lot over from hers. Close enough that we can hear her clearly from the upstairs back bedroom of our house. When the warm weather arrives and her sliding doors are open to her kitchen, and our windows are open too, we are subjected to her strange vitriol.

I'm morbidly fascinated by the sheer nastiness of what she says and the bitterness in her voice. To her son. To the elderly man we assume is her husband. She can swear with the worst of them. She can be gruffly nice to her dog -- I'll give her that.

Today she was ranting at someone when Donovan woke from his nap. Who? I have no idea. But we sat at the window and wondered about it. It's not exactly the wholesome content I want Donovan to hear in his own backyard, but we live in Fishtown, not Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.

Breastfeeding Elimination Diet Day 1

Lunch on the first day of the elimination diet.

It was with some dread that I began the elimination diet today. I don't like deprivation, but I feel compelled to find out with more certainty if Estelle has a gastrointestinal intolerance to certain foods in my diet.

This particular elimination diet is from my pediatrician at Fairmount Pediatrics. It's severe, but mercifully short and not nearly as severe as some other breastfeeding elimination diets. That's why I decided I could give it a go. (I can't wait for Day 5 when I can have wheat again.)

ELIMINATION DIET
Eat only meat, fruit, and vegetables for 2 days. If the baby is well with mom on this diet, then add back foods every 2 days in this order:
Rice, Wheat, Nuts, Soy, Egg, Dairy

I got through today and it wasn't that bad. Meat at every meal isn't my favorite, but veggies and fruit just don't hold me long, especially since I'm breastfeeding, which makes me very hungry!

~ ~ ~

Just to give you some background on this quest, I've been under the assumption that Estelle has a sensitivity to cow's milk protein that comes through in my breastmilk. In November 2011, when Estelle was 2 months old, little mucous-y clots of blood showed up in her diaper one day. I had been feeling like something wasn't quite right for her. Her poop was runny, mucous-y, and very green -- rarely the yellow, mustardy, seedy poop, typical of breastfed babies. Half the time after her feedings, instead of contentment, she was squirming and fussing. She also had been slow to gain weight in the first six weeks or so, and there was the omnipresent runny nose. One of the pediatricians at Nemours Philadelphia recognized the blood and mucuous-y green stools, and other symptoms as a sensitivity to dairy in my diet. Bad news for me, but it was a relief to have an explanation.

So, for the last 4 months, I have been living with the belief that she has a cow's milk protein intolerance and have avoided all dairy. No milk, yogurt, cheese, butter! It's hard. It's sucks.

Is she better? This is the nagging question for me because I don't feel like we have a clear answer. She's better. Her ongoing congestion has cleared up, but only recently, months after I quit dairy. We don't see red spots of blood in her diaper but her stools are still very green. Sometimes incredibly bright green like pesto. Other times, the color of her stool looks like there could be blood in the mix -- it's just not a stand-alone clot. She still fusses occasionally after nursing.

There is no medical test for milk intolerance in babies. The doctor at Allergy and Asthma Specialists here in Philadelphia told me that allergy tests measure histamine reactions and that food intolerance involves T-cells, not histamines.

Baby's First Taste of Solid Food

Last night we gave Estelle her first taste of solid food. Sweet potatoes! She lipped a little bit off the spoon, mulled it over in her mouth, and was done.

At 6+ months of age, apparently she is overdue for starting solid foods. Our new pediatrician practically scoffed the other day when I told her we haven't yet given her anything but breastmilk: "Oh! Well it's time! Get her started on solid foods." The latest studies seem to suggest that starting babies earlier -- at 4 months -- is better for preventing allergies.

Oh no! Did I put Estelle at risk for allergies because I waited a few months to start solid foods?? Something else to worry about!

The thing is, these pediatric recommendations change all the time. When Donovan was an infant I read/heard that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended starting babies on solid foods between 4-6 months. My instinct was to start solid foods later, rather than earlier, so we gave Donovan his first food -- rice cereal mixed with breastmilk -- at six months.

Another change: The pediatrician dismissed rice cereal, the typical first food, as being nutritionally empty. "Just start giving her little bits of mashed up food from your plate, right from your finger. "