PediaSure=Diaper Rash?!

I decided to get involved in something enjoyable far too late in the evening tonight and now I'm wide awake. So I thought, what better to do than write, right?

Still feeling cruddy and still obsessed with beefing Caitrin up, though Sean got on the scale with her tonight and it was weighing her at 19.2 lbs so it would appear we're already having success. She has been loving the PediaSure, but she's developed an awful diaper rash. We think that's what caused it because we haven't given her anything else she's never had before. I cut it out today to see if it makes a difference. Oh, that reminds me, I found a remedy for diaper rash that really does the trick. Here's the "recipe:"

• 1 tube zinc oxide diaper rash ointment (Desitin or generic)
  
• 1 tube bacitracin zinc ointment
• 1 tube miconazole nitrate 2% cream (Monistat 7 or generic)
• 1 tube hydrocortisone 1% cream

Mix the above in a small Tupperware container and cover tightly. At each diaper change, apply a thin layer to the affected area. This works because it treats all the causes of diaper rash: bacteria, yeast, and abrasion and the hydrocortisone stops the burning itch. This is good for up to a year after it's mixed. Of course, if you use cloth diapers like we do, you'll want to be sure to use a liner of some sort between baby's bottom and the diaper, as it is reported that preparations containing zinc oxide can cause diapers to leak. We use the biodegradable flushable liners from Imse Vimse.

Better finish my tea and try to get to bed. Good night and God bless.

Birthday Pics

More to come soon!!!

I know I'm wicked late on this!

I've heard from more and more folks who tell me that they not only follow this blog but LOVE it, and it's blowing my mind! I've also caught flak from many of you for taking too darn long to post about my baby girl's birthday. I know, I know, what's wrong with me, right?!

Honestly, the past week is just a blur. I intended to sit down and write a heartfelt and detailed message about Caitrin's birth and her amazing first year. My heart is so full of a million words and a thousand emotions, but my family's been sick and I over-exerted myself with all the birthday preparations and it pains me to admit this but I've been exhausted.

As you know, Caitrin was sick with her first fever just before her birthday. Fortunately it only lasted overnight and she was much better the next day. Her daddy not so much. He woke up very ill on Caitrin's birthday. He was feverish until Wednesday, coughing and hacking with a sore throat and upset stomach. He finally seems to be rallying, and now I'm feeling pretty funky. Throat and ears hurt, body aches and I could sleep for a year.

Caitrin's birthday was awesome. I stayed up entirely too late the night before putting together her cake, which came out amazing if I do say so myself. We went into her room in the morning singing "Happy Birthday," and she thought that was the cat's meow! She wore a special onesie I had custom made that said "Caitrin is ONE today! Happy Birthday, Little Lady" with a picture of a big, goofy ladybug on it. Sean was so under the weather that he stayed home from church, so I took Caitrin solo for the first time. It was challenging. Since she had still been feverish the night before, I didn't feel it was wise to put her in nursery and expose the other babies, so I kept her with me. She made it to the end of the first worship set and then decided it was time to talk, so I spent the rest of the time walking the halls with her. It felt like an exercise in futility, but we thought it was a great teaching opportunity. Mom doesn't need Dad with her in order to worship God, and we don't need to be in perfect health to worship Him either. And even if we don't get to hear a word of the sermon, the point is that we set aside special time to give God the glory He deserves. She did get many birthday wishes from our friends as they went back and forth to count the offering, take their little ones to the potty, and the like.

After church Sean and I made lunch (Caitrin's new favorite: spinach & cheese tortellini) and then Pops and Nana came over. Caitrin opened presents with our help, but her favorite part was playing with the tissue paper and bows! As a testament to what a smart, cool kid she is, my daughter was more interested in her scrapbook, which I rushed to finish and wrapped up even though I doubt it means much to her yet, than the oodles of toys she got. And while she enjoyed her cake, she didn't smash it or plaster the high chair with it. She was such a lady, refusing to eat until I cut it into bite-size pieces for her.

I am in the process of editing the pictures from her special day. I'm sorry, but now that I know how, I can't post unedited photos. No matter how careful or arty I try to be when I take them, they are always made better by Photoshop. Promise I will get them up soon.

The day after her birthday, Caitrin had her 12-month checkup at the pediatrician. I guess the outcome of that visit has kept my thoughts rather preoccupied as well this week, in addition to dealing with whatever nasty bug has been wreaking havoc on my family. Deep breath. Back when Caitrin had her 9-month checkup, they weighed her at 18 lbs, 8 oz. That was pretty amazing because it put her at the 50th percentile, and theretofore she'd consistently been hovering somewhere between the 10th and 25th percentiles. Bear in mind that breastfed babies are smaller than those fed formula, girls are smaller than boys, and Caitrin was born 4 weeks premature and weighed just 5 lbs, 15 oz at birth.

On Monday Caitrin weighed 18 lbs, 10 oz. Assuming that measurement, and the previous one, were correct, that would mean she gained 2 ounces in three months. For the uninitiated, that's not okay. It puts her back between the 10th and 25th percentiles. Percentiles don't matter too much, but what does matter is the rate of growth. The nurse who weighed her was alarmed, so she weighed her again and made sure that both Sean and I agreed with the 18/10 reading before she wrote it down. When she left the room, I couldn't hold back the tears. Holy crap, what's wrong? All Caitrin does is eat, so how could she have gained essentially nothing in three months? That would mean that for a while, her weight would've dropped. How?! She hasn't been ill. She eats like a linebacker. I don't get it.

When the pedi came in she must've known we'd be panicked because the weight issue was the first thing she addressed. She thinks, as do we, that Caitrin's weight was inaccurate at her 9-month appointment. She is small compared to most babies her age, but she is right where she had been on the growth chart prior to her 9-month appointment. Her height is 28.75 inches, which puts her just below the 50th percentile, and her head circumference measured at the 60th percentile, so the doctor was happy. Developmentally, Caitrin is right on, and she even displayed her fondness for pointing and her overall cheery disposition for the doctor. The height and head circumference measurements and the fact that Caitrin is healthy, happy, eating well and hitting all the developmental milestones seemed to cement the pedi's assertion that the 9-month weight was incorrect. I kept asking if we are feeding her enough, whether we should be doing something else and if there's some dreadful cause underlying all the positives that could be keeping Caitrin from being the size most other babies are. It seems that the pedi is actually very pleased with Caitrin's health. She had five shots and has to go back in a month to have the second dose of the flu vaccine and the next dose of Hepatitis A, which we elected to postpone since she was already getting 5 others and had so recently been ill anyhow. When she goes back they will recheck her weight and want to see her at 19 lbs by then.

So I'm sure that those of you who know me have already accurately predicted my reaction. And surely you know that I can't pin it down to one emotion. Failure is a prominent ingredient in the stew, as is fear. Mix in a dash of anger and a healthy dose of sadness and you're getting close. I thought things were going so well. Where did I go wrong? Did I withhold food from her? That's a form of abuse, you know. Oh my goodness, am I a child abuser? I thought I was feeding her plenty. I've done HOURS of research on what and how much to feed her at the various stages she's passed through. She readily gobbles down cheeseburgers and broccoli and macaroni & cheese. As far as she knows, white bread doesn't even exist. She started out on the umpteen-grain kind I eat and thinks it's great. She'll eat a third of a cup of baby cereal at breakfast (and the serving size is only 1/4 cup) AND a whole NutriGrain bar too.

My sole mission in life now is to beef up my kid. I'm trying to work her up to two snacks a day in addition to the three meals she's been eating. And I bought her PediaSure. The vanilla DHA kind. There are 240 calories in an 8-ounce bottle, and I try to get her to take 2 ounces at a time with breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks. She doesn't yet, of course, but we'll get there. I just bought Fig Newtons because they're so nutrient-rich, and she loves them. But I don't want to go in the other direction, either. I weighed more at 6 months than Caitrin does now. I've never been a "big" person (though I was at least a head taller than everyone in my class until about 8th grade. And then I froze...go figure.) but my mom told me she used to catch all kinds of hell from doctors when I was a baby because I was so big. We know a little boy who is two weeks younger than Caitrin, but already weighs 40 lbs and is far bigger than my girlfriend's 2 1/2 year old. That's not what I want for Caitrin, either.

I guess I was almost finally starting to think I didn't totally suck at this motherhood thing. I guess I was wrong. I have huge dreams for my daughter. I want her to be brilliant and to excel at everything she sets her mind to. How can she do that if she's LOSING weight instead of gaining it? If her body's not growing then that precious little brain is starving, too.

Against my better judgment, I went ahead and gave my okay for Caitrin to get her MMR vaccine on Monday. I understand the importance of vaccines and she's had all the ones on the schedule, but I've never been certain that there's not a connection between MMR and autism, and I have a cousin who is autistic. The entire staff at her pedi's disavows the connection, saying the the evidence people point to shows correlation, not causation. I've weighed and debated this since I knew I was pregnant, and the conclusion I came to, while perhaps not the most scholarly, is this: Sean had the MMR as a kid, and so did I, and my brother and sister and all the kids I went to school with, and none of us is autistic. Drug safety standards were not nearly as strict a quarter century ago as they are now, so I'm going to err on the side of caution and get Caitrin vaccinated, and pray that the Lord will protect her from any long-term adverse effects.

For somebody who got 5 shots, Caitrin was a real champ. She cried great big tears that broke my heart at first, but that lasted all of 30 seconds. She was fine the whole rest of the day, so I thought we were in the clear in terms of post-vaccination fever or grumpiness. We gave her a bath that night and I thought she might feel just a teensy bit warm, but you can never really tell anytime you've just had your hands in water. We put her to bed, and when I came up around 11 pm she started to fuss. I went in since she had just had shots, and when I picked her up she felt much hotter than she had a few days earlier when her temp was 102.7. I wasn't about to subject her to the indignity of taking her temperature in the middle of the night, so I just stripped her down, gave her Motrin, nursed her like crazy and sponged her off with a cold cloth. She was very fussy all night, but by morning the fever was gone.

At this point I'm rambling, and I haven't spent time with my husband all week, and there's a debate to watch and diapers to fold and Coricidin to take so I'd best be off.

Sick Little Chick

I didn't intend for it to be so long between posts. I've been preoccupied with finishing Caitrin's scrapbook before her birthday. I finally finished on Tuesday, so then I had some long-neglected household stuff to catch up on. So here I am.

My poor little chicky had her first fever yesterday. I heard her crying before 6 am, which is highly unusual for her. When I went to check on her, I saw she had thrown up during the night and when I picked her up, she was on fire. Sean and I had to learn on the fly how to take a rectal temp. The last time we took Caitrin's temperature, she was just a couple months old and the pacifier thermometer did the trick. Now she won't keep her mouth closed, and since necessity is the mother, we did what we had to do. Alarm bells went off in my head when I saw the reading...102.7.

Since we've been so fortunate as to have made it through her first year without a high fever, I was pretty freaked out and called her pediatrician. Took her in and he said she has a mild virus and should be right as rain by the weekend. I'm to keep her dressed comfortably, give a bland diet for a couple days, and make sure she has plenty of opportunities for quiet time. She's scheduled for her 12-month preventative visit next Monday, and by then she'll be well enough to have her flu shot so that hopefully this won't happen again.

Despite feeling like poo yesterday, my girl really was a trouper. She was still her smiley, happy self and spent the majority of the day playing on the cool living room floor. I let her nurse about 8974632 times since she's not supposed to eat her usual variety of foods. We took a long walk after lunch since it was cool out. She only got inconsolable right before bed. When we went in to get her this morning, we could tell right away that she was feeling much better. She only felt the slightest bit warm to me and played happily till naptime. Now, mind you, she's not napping (and it looks like I've gotta go get her soon) but she's happy up there, singing to herself.

I'm so grateful that it doesn't appear she's severely ill, but I can't help feeling like I failed her. She trusts me, and I let her down. I don't know exactly where I went wrong, but something I did, or neglected to do, caused her to get sick. Ever-present in the back of my mind is the fear of febrile seizures. Depends on whose opinion you subscribe to, but some experts say that babies are at an increased risk if a parent has a seizure disorder, and although Sean's epilepsy does not appear to be genetic, the spectre is still there.

And I'm feeling pretty terrified about the state of the US economy. The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the government bailout of AIG this week have the media whipped into a frenzy. I think that there's a degree to which these folks fail to recognize that God saw all this coming long before it happened and none of it is lost on Him. At the same time, I am absolutely petrified at the way we are on the fast track to socialism, "rolling down hill like a snowball headed for hell" (Merle Haggard, isn't it? Something I know my grandfather listens to). I don't even care so much about the impact of all this on me, but I do not want my children to grow up in Waterworld, you know?

Eh, well, I know some of these folks think we should be chewing our fingernails and freaking out every second, but at least for the moment life goes on. And my baby's first birthday is two days away! In fact, today is the first anniversary of my last day at Medallion, and of the day I went into labor. I've got birthday cake plans to work on and food coloring and fondant to buy. Wish my girl were napping, because I am completely exhausted and need a rest myself. But as long as her temperature is still normal, think we're gonna go to Michael's and engage in a little economic stimulus. More soon.

Indoctrinating the Exersaucer set?!

Let's begin things on a happy note with a pic of Caitrin stealing my sunglasses at Blackwater Falls. Over the past few days I've received the nicest notes and emails from all over telling me how much people appreciate our blog. I honestly had no idea whether anyone besides Sean was reading this, so knowing that there are people who not only read what I have to say but like it, is pretty flattering. Thanks guys!

Now I've gotta get some things off my chest. I apologize in advance if I offend or alienate anyone, as that is not my intention.

A few months ago I joined a children's book club so that I can build Caitrin's library without paying a fortune. As in the majority of the decisions I make, this one was made with a great deal of deliberation. I scoured their mailings for a few months to be sure that their offerings promoted early learning, Christian values, and moral fortitude before I signed up. I was thoroughly impressed in particular by the number of Christian books they offered. It's now been four or five months since I joined, and I had always felt confident in the club's selection. And then I got this month's mailing. Smack dab in the center of the circular, above the fold and in gaudy bold colors, is a 3/4 page flourish touting the book Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope, intended for an audience 4-6 years in age. The cover of said atrocity features a portrait of the "Obamessiah" bathed in beams of light. A portrait that, Sean pointed out, is intended to evoke Catholic imagery of Jesus, the Pope, or the Blessed Mother.

I was incensed. Those of you who know me well can guess, I'm certain, at all the levels on which this offended me. Obama is a Marxist, socialist baby killer, for starters. And it's perfectly acceptable to slay Sarah Palin's character by spreading sickening and libelous rumors about the governor and her family, but say ANYTHING about Obama and you're a narrow-minded racist "hater." Mind you, the club made no show of offering anything that could remotely be construed as balancing the scales. No books about John McCain, war hero or Ronald Reagan and the fall of the Soviet empire. Nothing angers me more, however, than the suggestion that our littlest ones be indoctrinated in any political ideology. There is no place for liberalism or conservatism on the playgrounds of America. Young children (and I'll go so far as to include all children from birth through the early teen years) lack the ability to discern fact from opinion. In our household, Sean and I have very strong political views. I hope and believe that one day our children will choose those views for their own. But until Caitrin and her future siblings are old enough and mature enough to form their own opinions, you can be assured that we will NOT be reading to them about how any Presidential candidate is the Messiah. Our children will be reading the teachings of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, instead. This concludes Rant Number One.

Quickly, as Caitrin is already awake from her morning nap, one more point. I've been feeling a great deal of pressure (much of which is self-imposed, but just as much comes from outside sources) to throw the ultimate first birthday party for Caitrin. She only turns one once, after all. One of the many things Mom and Dad did SO right when we were growing up was to keep birthday celebrations to just our immediate family, grandparents, and an aunt or uncle or two. Mom would always bake our favorite cake and make us anything we wanted for dinner. We would decorate with balloons and streamers, and the whole dining room table would be piled high with presents (even in the leanest times - thanks, Mom and Dad!). After dinner, the grandparents, aunts and uncles would come and we'd have cake and ice cream and open presents. These celebrations were always so special. This is a tradition Sean and I want to continue in our family. So I'll be baking a ladybug cake for Caitrin. I've bought plates and napkins and streamers in ladybug-inspired colors. I'll probably make her pancakes for dinner, and then the relatives who are close by will come for cake and ice cream and we'll watch Caitrin rip into her presents. We'll take loads of pictures, and she'll be able to stick to her nap schedule so that she'll be rested enough to enjoy her special day. Probably only perfect according to our standards, but aren't those the only ones that matter?

Praise for Palin, and My Girl Can EAT!

My, my, what a busy week we've had! I had every intention of writing on Monday after we got back from Canaan, and that clearly didn't happen, now, did it? It sounds lame, but I'm thoroughly exhausted from vacation.

Suffice it to say that Caitrin's first trip to Canaan Valley was a big hit. She loved the house we stayed in (as we all did). It had an even more open floor plan downstairs than ours does. And they had Mega Bloks. Just a few, but she fell in love. Guess what she'll be getting for her birthday! The photo at left is Our Girl, clutching her Security Block and bearing a frightening resemblance to Nosferatu. Which makes Sean's hilarious Freudian slip last night - in which he ended up referring to her as "Saitrin" - all the more a propos.

One of the things Sean and I were most excited to do was take Caitrin to Sirianni's, of course. She ended up out-eating both of us! We kept saying we didn't know where she was putting it, and then we found out! She had three or four of the nastiest diapers EVER afterward, inspiring us to coin the term "softball of death." I'll stop there, as some things are better left to the imagination. Other highlights of the trip included a trip to Blackwater Falls and several games of "Blink" between Caitrin and the fawns, who were still wearing their spots. Fun times!

I wasn't at all planning on watching the Republican Convention. Okay, so maybe I had decided to DVR it, but only for the purpose of it being counted in the ratings. Being somewhere to the right of Alan Keyes in ideology, I truly felt unrepresented in this Presidential race, even after John McCain's impressive performance at the Saddleback event. And then Sarah Palin happened. Oh. My. Goodness. I don't even know where to begin my lovefest for Alaska's leading lady. That's as good a place as any. She's a lady, in every sense of the word. She is the Proverbs 31 woman I so badly want to be. And ever since I heard about her affinity for big game hunting, I've pictured her doing what I've seen my Nanny do on several occasions. It involves high snowbanks and a long nightgown and Bean boots...oh, and a moose getting well acquainted with the business end of a .22.

Aaaggghhhh, and just when I think I'll have time to engage in higher-order thinking for .02 seconds, it appears Caitrin's awake from her nap, and Cassy is using the occasion to scream at me through the basement door for her dinner. I've gotta finish my previous thought, though, so in summary, conservative Christian women have a new superhero. Sarah Palin rocks!