Its Friday? Friday updates.

Zia, surrounded...

First, thank you Superman, for telling me to sit for 30 minutes rather than make dinner.  You ROCK.  (This blog post, thanks to Superman.)

I was making an appointment for Zia this morning and had to ask the woman what day of the week it is...  When she said "Friday,"  I didn't have one of those, 'oh, yeah' moments, her answer completely surprised me.   Telling, truly ;)

Ms. Z had her little procedure this week.  Thankfully, Superman went with us.  I couldn't imagine driving to a distant quarter with a screaming newborn and was relieved to sit in back, sandwiched between my babes (neither of whom screamed :)  Funny, the ride was the only part I was really dreading, since all of our research promised us that such young babies don't have many nerve endings in the frenulum areas.  No pain, just a drop of blood.  

Ummm.  Sweet Z had just gotten down for a nap when the doctor came in.  She was fairly patient about being woken up with fingers in her face.  He agreed she was totally tongue tied and her lip frenulum was too tight too.  But no other mouth issues, which was great!  The assistant came in to hold Z's head, I chose E to hold Z's arms down and out came the scissors.  

Seriously, I question the mental state of the people that do this for a living.  I mean, super yay that they are there for babies in need, but oh. my. gawd.  I don't know how they stomach it.  Poor, tiny little unsuspecting babies!  Her shrieks killed me.  But the real tear inducer was watching droplets of blood skitter into the air as she choked on it and continued screaming. 

There were a few more snips and a bloody gauze pad shoved into her mouth and then it was over.  Kinda;)  They sent us to the next room to nurse and the poor thing just wailed for a bit.  Then she latched on... and I could instantly tell the difference!  Granted, she was sliding around due to all of the blood (and sweet Superman stood there, all serious, wiping Z and I dry, over and over, muttering that he didn't like blood on his baby's face), but her mouth was obviously more open and able.  Knowing this helped E and I, but I don't know that Zia was that impressed :)

She passed out and slept until P's curiosity woke her... too soon.  She then wailed for the rest of the evening.  So, so sad.  The next day sucked too.  She had started making serious eye contact and reeeeally smiling at us just a few days before the procedure.  The day after the snipping, no smiles, no eye contact.  For the. whole. day.  

Add to the worry that she had lost faith in us and was thoroughly traumatized the fact that we need to do mouth exercises 6-8 times a day to make sure her wounds don't reseal and then add a six year old boy who felt ignored and upset by all of the wailing and you have a pretty decent shit-storm for the day.  

But Ms. Z didn't seem as upset by the exercises as we worried, and P has 6 long years of lovin' to fall back on, and sleep is not essential.  And Dina texts me down.  And Zia was smiley again today :)))  In fact, I laughed earlier and this made her smile so big I actually felt warm fuzzies.  Fer real ;)

So, we're glad we went through with the procedure.  No worrying for the next few years that she'll have language issues from skipping it.  No threat to her milk supply.  No gap teeth in her future :)

But it hasn't been the cure-all we had hoped for...  Seems there are still some digestive issues going on for little Z, we have an appointment next Tuesday to learn more.  She still has a reeeeeally rough time getting to sleep/settling, showing a distinct preference to highly aerobic dancing and bouncing by her carrier.  Curling her while sashaying through the day was killing my back, so we are working on a peaceful solution that puts her in a wrap or sling.  (Which also means once she's asleep for her cat-naps, I can move about with P, making his life much better:)  

Zia, hilariously positioned in the wrap, sleeping.

So, what does all of this do to the sibling relationship?  The one I hoped would be a cake-walk due to the age difference (which is nice)?  The Little Man is still being understanding, but you can tell that by this week, his "understanding" is wearing just a titch thin.  He just doesn't understand why she has to cry.  So Loud.  And So Often.  (Honestly, I agree ;)  I mean, I'm feeding on demand, carrying her everywhere, doing all of the stuff that tribal cultures and their unbelievably content babies do and... no cigar....  I seriously feel like I'm sucking but not sure of why.)  

At any rate, I try to validate his annoyance.  And vocalize how I view Z's, erm, vocalizations.  So, the other day, she was crying, I was bouncing and hopping and checking her diaper etc while soothingly telling her to "tell me her story", that I was listening.  P jumped up and, as he exited the room with his hands over his ears (a rarity, he typically sticks by the noise for some strange reason) angrily said, "I don't want to hear her story!  Her stories SUCK!"  

So glad he was out of the room.  Cuz I found this heee-larious.  

So, there are annoyances that I didn't foresee.  And I worry about the noise making the boy not like the baby.  But so far so good.  After she wakes up (on no-surgery days;) she's pretty darn cute for about a half an hour.  And the Little Man either ignores her or obsessively plays with her.  He loves watching her mouth exercises.  He tells her constantly how adorable she is.  He tries to dress her.  He vigilantly makes sure she doesn't choke when I run to the loo.  In fact, the other day she woke up (heaven forbid you put her down while she is napping and steal even 5 minutes of peaceful sleep from her during the day.  I mean, if you have to work for 20 minutes to get her to sleep for 20 minutes, you just don't eff with that!) and was all happy.  So I laid her on P's rug and ran to the jon. I must admit to being slightly nervous leaving her with him.  I mean, I trust him and all, but, well, he is six.  

This is what I returned to:

He was chanting something about how he had her surrounded.  She was totally captivated, turning her head to follow him.  He was pretty pleased with himself.  I guess he was safely acting out any aggressions...

He's also Very Pleased with his front porch.  Long has he dreamed of decorating for Halloween.  Now out of NYC, he made it happen. He has dedicated many, many afternoons in the last week to this project.

And Artemisia (P caller her Artie the other day and it cracked me up!) turned one month this week.  Here's a shot of how big she is getting (almost 10 pounds!)

And one last note for the week.  P's favorite baby thing happened today.  She was bopping her head around as she nursed and I muttered something about how she'd probably be a tummy time champ.  He quickly asked what "tummy time" was and if we could do it.  So we spread a blanket and put Z on the floor.  She immediately popped up and looked all around.  She stayed there, quite happily, for a couple of minutes, holding her head high and looking around.  I was so surprised (she's still so cuddly and floppy when you hold her!) I grabbed my phone.   Someday, the second will get an actual camera shot... ;)

In the meantime, every time she wakes up, P asks if she can do tummy time.  I think he thinks she's going to just push up and start crawling ;) And I think he'll be the most excited person in the house on the day that she does!