Eliminating Communication

A few days ago L suggested we start toilet training the wee one. I was reluctant at first, but she made a very convincing case for it. She came across this idea called Elimination Communication, which is a pretty daft name for a form of toilet training. But I suppose DAUT was too obscure a backronym.

EC as a whole has a lot of pretty tweaked ideas, but at its heart makes sense – babies have to learn to defecate in their clothes, which they need to unlearn later. Take advantage of this before they get too used to sitting in their own yukky stuffs. The idea that the lass can be toilet trained now at 5 months is something I can heartily endorse. It could take months, but even one less nappy to change would be appreciated.

So we've been taking turns holding the girl on the toilet seat waiting for her to get the idea. As far as I can tell, so far she just thinks we're nuts and that she was perfectly happy going when and where she pleased. And why does she now have to sit on a cold hard chair, risking falling into a scary tub of water, while we sing to her and make excited faces encouraging something to happen. What. Do you want me to giggle? Cause, as far as I can tell, it's the only thing I'm doing that gets any positive response.

I bought a baby training seat for the loo to make the process a little less scary, but she's still not getting it. Well, plenty of time for her to warm to the idea. It's not like she's got any better places to be.

As a side note, this strikes me as yet another example of how the whole baby thing in our culture is just all wrong. Pregnancy, birth, feeding, transporting… the "normal" way of dong things seems to be the nearly the worst thing possible to do. So it would not surprise me at all if the expected way of doing nappies and toilet training is well off course.

Actually, I knew there was loads wrong about this culture before I even considered breeding. Why should common conceptions of childrearing be any different?

Scary illnesses

Yesterday the wee one came down with a tummy bug. It was really rather scary seeing it. I was at the grocery store with her in a sling facing out so she could enjoy the sights. Turns out, if I'm alone having her face outward is not a good idea. Beyond hearing her breathe and vocalise and holding her hand, there's no real sign to tell what she's doing.

So my first sign that something is wrong is she spits up and I rush to catch it with a muslin. But it soaks through and just doesn't stop coming. I turn toward the hand mirrors on display next to me, and I see her throw up again, this time out of her nose too. I get her out of the harness, sit her on the floor and clean her up. She's quiet, but not out of it. I can't tell if she feels nothing unusual's happened or she's upset and weakened beyond crying. I worry that, since it's cold out, I overbundled her and accidentally burnt her brain out.

I'm not putting her back in for the trip home. I just pick her up and walk quickly homeward. Her being sedate through the whole experience makes it worse. The world just cut out and there is just us, and blurry obstacles between us and home. 5 minutes and one panicked call later (she's not well, get the door) and I'm unbundling her on the bed. She seems fine. She's turned on her belly doing the cat pose. Then she surprises us by bawling unconsolably for half an hour. Something she's not done for ages.

L tries consoling her while I call NHS direct asking for advice. She falls asleep by the time I'm off the phone.

In the end, she throws up huge amounts two more times. I feel slightly better in that it's clearly not because I bundled her up too much. But worse too because she's clearly got something wrong. It's almost certainly due to her catching her mum's tummy bug (which we thought was food poisoning). They say it'll likely be over in 72 hours (40 more to go) and just make sure she doesn't dehydrate.

She did it again today while I was taking her down the stairs. Two very volumous vomits with stuff coming out her nose. That's still really weird to see – though it's also a good sign that something is Not Right. She seems to be coping better with it today – no 30 minute bawl session following the incident, just some patience while I run around shedding icky clothes, cleaning the girl, floor and whatnot.

So, it seems we just sit and wait and have towels at hand in case of more trouble.

Now we fly

Just over a month ago, we took the child on her first intercontinental plane trip. We went to see her grandparents, aunts and uncle in the US. Planning this journey was a lot of work. I've travelled a lot, so at this point I've got it down to an art. At least if it's just me, or just me and L. No need to plan how to get to the airport, or anything. Just set out on autopilot and don't think till we hit the destination.

This time we had to actually plan. In great detail. How do we feed and change her on the flight? How many changes of clothes do we need to bring? How many just for travelling. How do we get her and the pram to the airport with our luggage? Do we need the pram? How does security work? How do we carry her around the airport? How will she deal with the air pressure changes on takeoff and landing? What do we do if she fusses? How do we get from the airport at our destination? Our birth plan wasn't this complicated.

Or expensive. We ended up using minicabs for the London-side travel, and a rental car in the US.

The minicab picking us up at home arrived 45 minutes early since they wanted to fit in an extra fare that morning (or, as they said, traffic). We weren't done packing so all we could do was have them wait. We barely squeezed our luggage plus the folded pram in the car. So now we know how much we can take with us an fit in a reasonable sized minicab.

Rather than detailing the whole adventure, I'll just recount the interesting bits.

The wee one had about as much luggage for just herself as we did for both L and I combined. Or more for her, if you include the pram.

All the airport and airplane staff cooed over the child. Even UK immigration said awww. Only Dulles security were heartless and mean. More on that later.

We flew Virgin Atlantic, which had good parts and bad parts. The seating on the plane over was lovely. It was one of their newer planes. The "sky cot" was easy to get the kid into and out of. She even slept in it a little. We were sat next to the double-sized loo which had a good sized changing table. We had row of 5 to ourselves.

The real down side was Virgin breaking our pram. Two of the wheels just snapped off. They said they'd pay us back for the repairs, but I'm still following that up with them. Not at all impressed. Especially with their customer service: Here's all your paperwork, phone the number at the end to make the arrangements. When we got to our destination, only then did we notice there was no number in the paperwork. Or on the web site. Or anywhere. Not impressed.

They also appear to have a policy of taking 3 weeks to respond to any communication. This is not sarcasm. This is their actual policy.

Anyways, once we arrived, we got to spend some quality family time plus occasional visits to friends in the area. The little one behaved quite well through most of our social events. In fact, we benefited from her jet lag since she was not able to get to sleep at a reasonable time, instead of after midnight.

My first time alone together with the wife after the child was born was when we left her, with the mother-in-law and a bottle of breastmilk, while we went off to renew the wife's drivers license. Then shopping at Target.

Sounds romantic, doesn't it?

The worst trouble we had was car rides. The babe would sometimes just hate them. That was yet another thing which was the opposite of what we were led to believe. About 1/3 of all drives had her needing consolation at some point. Either I had to reach to the back seat and try to calm her down, or, I would just sit next to her for the duration of the drive.

We ended up not using the pram much at all – even after we got the replacement parts. It was car seat for the drive, then the sling at the other end. I did end up getting a number of amused my god, there's a baby in there when people noticed that the bump on my chest was a cute little tiny person rather than too many pies.

Flying back the UK was less pleasant than leaving the UK. Dulles has dropped in my opinion to a strip mall with airplanes. There are no changing tables at the airport. None. The family restrooms are just large restrooms with a single toilet and a sink. I had to change her on the floor. I still cannot believe it's that bad.

Security made things worse. They were nice and cooed over the babe up until the metal detectors. At that point they made us dismantle the pram, on top of all the various take off shoes, take out laptops, etc etc they usually make people do. Then when madly putting the pram and luggage back together, with just one shoe on between us, all while trying to keep the child calm, then they told us to vacate the secure area. Really. That actually happened.

I swear, if I didn't have to return to DC, that would be enough to convince me to just give up and never go there again. It's not that nice a place to warrant that sort of trouble. (Then again, arrival wasn't so bad, maybe next time I'll try leaving from another city)

The plane ride back to the UK was innocuous. The plane itself was not as new, so the facilities were less nice, but certainly passable. The cot did look like it was slept in more times than I care to imagine. This time Virgin didn't break any of our stuff, which was a bonus. Passport control was a breeze. There was sizeable queue, but they herded us to a new queue with no one ahead of us. We were stamped in by a officer in training, who clearly had not gone through her cynic training yet. She cooed the most of any public official yet over the child. That made for a nice welcome home.

I'm stopping the story here so I end on a high note

Now we have tooth

The little one's first tooth has started to peek through the gums today. This comes as rather a bit of a shock being that she's not even 4 months old and we're not supped to be getting those till 6 months.

She's been showing the classic signs of teething for almost a month now. Chewing on things. Especially my fingers. And. So. Much. Drooool. We thought this would last for a while, creeping up in intensity till teeth popped out. But no.

I worry most for L's breasts. I'm hoping the wee one shows some restraint and does not start chomping. I've heard too many stories of women giving up breast feeding after the first teeth came in. It's too soon to stop now, and there are downsides to having to bottlefeed her (like having to have bottles of milk at hand whenever you leave the house – breasts are so much easier to carry around with you).

L and the baby met me for lunch today. I've been offsite away from home for 2 days, so to make up for lost time, they came to see me in the office. To my surprise, L dressed her in an outfit I wore when I was about 5 months old. It fits her perfectly. Too perfectly – was I a small baby at 5 months? or is she large at 4?

It was all rather sweet. After work, when I got home I took out the camera and started taking pictures of her in poses I'd been photographed in as a baby. Cheesy, but I had to do it. I don't mind dressing her in the intense 70s fashions of my or L's clothes. After all, my hindbrain associates childhood and new parentness with 70s fashions. I have to actively try to seek out sane styles and colours for her to wear.

After all that, Life on Mars came up on the playlist. I joked with L about feeling like DCI Sam Tyler meeting his baby self in 1973. All the while, I swayed with the little girl in time to the music till she slowly dropped off to sleep by the end of the song.

Lovely.

All smiles

First off, it's been one year since the pregnancy test, and almost a year since I started this blog. Looking back it's amazing how the changes in life keep coming faster and faster. At the start it was Yup – pregnant. Come back in 2 months for your scan. Now we seem to hit a new milestone each week now. Every moment seems to be full with something, yet somehow I blink and four months have passed.

One of the most rewarding things so far is all the smiles. They kicked in just after week 6 – just like the books say. She started off doing this wide toothless :D with her tounge just sticking out a bit. She'd also always immediately shy away. In the months in between then and now she's learned much more control. She has a range from light closed-mouth grin all the way to full on smiling with gums and everything.

The first thing she does after waking up is smile. It's lovely, but I'm worried we might have a morning person. Even if she wakes up hungry or after a fit of complaining, once her eyes open properly and she sees me, she just gives me this heartmelting wide grin that I just can't get enough of. She giggles too on occasion, but mostly it's a silent giggle that ends in a bit of a wheeze. She needs to work on that, but at least we know what she means.

Checking in

We're all still alive. It's just been rather busy lately. With luck I can catch up on these stories:

• First smiles
• My first (and second) work trip away from the baby
• First intercontinental plane journey
• First Halloween
• First very long car ride
• First cold
• The trials of getting to sleep at a reasonable hour and still having a life

As you can guess, it's the last one which relates more to why I've not been posting

First time away

Work has picked up in intensity. This does not play well with spending time with the wee one. L is home all day with her while I work, and I tend to only see her nights and weekends.

So I'm on my first work trip since the child was born. I told them I would not travel until September. So they asked if I could travel on September first. I, of course considered this taking the piss. I ended up convincing people to come to London.

A few weeks later and I can no longer avoid it. So off to scandanavia for 3 (well, 2.5) nights away. I'm away for as short a time as I could get (they wanted another 2 days).I prepared by making an absolutely huge curry. It barely fit into the pot. I hoped it would feed L for at least a couple of dinners (she went out for din with friends one night).

That's all I could do to provide any help at all for L while I was gone. It just felt mean leaving her alone to care for the child. I'm not sure if there's anything I could do beyond finding a nanny to come in – and I doubt L would want that.

I've gotten used to being without L while on trips. Between SMS, email, VOIP and skype video being away is about as painless as it can be. But that doesn't work with the baby. I can't cuddle or change her remotely. The best I can do is watch her over skype (we set up an account for her). It helps, but, of course the hotel was having internet problems. So I got a few minutes of watching her (nice)before it just got a bit awkard.

I'm back home tonight. L has come down with something. So the annoyance of taking care of a baby alone is now the annoyance of taking care of a baby while under the weather. We have her immunisations tomorrow. So I'm going to try to take her myself so L can get a bit of rest. Which means doing early morning conference calls beforehand, then heading into work in the afternoon.

Sometimes I feel I have to take care of one baby during the day, and another (more cuddly one) at night.