Next time, on Springer

Noah has had a perpetual stuffy nose for about 3 months and last night it got a lot worse. And then when I checked on Noah at daycare they told me that he had been screeching all morning, teething all morning, and not very interested in food. The food is what concerned me so I left work early and we went to the pediatrician. He either has a cold or a sinus infection so they are going to treat him for the sinus infection. Which is fine, except that Noah hates the medicine (despite the oh so yummy bubble gum flavor). I was also told that his reflux can be aggravated be all this which may explain why he is spitting up so much. Although it does not explain why the triage nurse at the doctor's office has not called back yet (it's been an hour). Here is the kicker. Noah has not slept all day and it is pretty obvious that he needs to sleep. But every time we put him in his crib he screeches. He did fall asleep briefly but woke up when I went to check on him (Dan was NOT happy). We tried everything to calm Noah down but all he wanted to do was play on our bed. So he played. He rolled around, he giggled, played with a few toys, etc. He even practiced crawling by pushing up on all fours and rocking back and forth. Then Elie decided he wanted to play too. He licked Noah and then he mounted Noah. From behind. While doing dachshund pelvic thrusts.It was disturbing, and yet strangely funny. Noah was amused.

The fruits of my labor

Before Noah was born I decided to breast feed. Not because I had some hidden desire to have a baby latched to my boob, but because all of the books and doctors say "breast is best." So Noah was born and we tried breastfeeding. Except he wasn't a boob man. Sometimes he would latch on but more often than not he wouldn't. And then the poor little guy would cry because he was hungry and my night shirt would be soaked because I would be leaking milk. In the end, the nurses at the hospital had me pump the breast milk and give to him in a bottle. Noah was thrilled and my nipples no longer hurt. Happy baby, happy mommy.I guess you could say I was an overachiever in the area of breast milk production. I pumped every 2-3 hours or else I would leak all over my clothes and the bed. Within days we realized that I had too much milk so we started freezing it, thinking that we would give it to Noah when I went back to work. I planned on pumping for six weeks, but finding a job took longer than I thought so six weeks ended up being 5.5 months. In the end my freezer (and my parents freezer) were OVERFLOWING with little bags of frozen breast milk.All of which I threw away this past weekend.The bags we bought which everyone said were so great sucked. We'd thaw out a "momsicle" (online term for frozen breast milk) and the bag would leak everywhere.Now all of my hard work is sitting in a garbage bag on in front of the house waiting for the Phoenix Sanitation Department to come and get it.

Green beans, peas, and a shower

So Dan, Noah and I went out today to run errands and on the list of things to do was buy baby food. Specifically Gerber stage one green beans and peas. Stage one foods are just the fruit/vegetable and water. Healthy and the fruit is surprisingly tasty. It seems that whenever we go to the store they have all the other stage one vegetables except the green ones. Noah loves his sweet potatoes and carrots (squash didn't go over well) but never the green ones. Considering that there are only four stage one vegetables it ticks me off that the ones I need are never in stock. Dan tried Target where they had fruits but no veggies, and we have tried a couple of Fry's in the area where they had all the fruits and just the orange veggies. Is there a conspiracy against green beans and peas? Eventually we found them at the Fry's near my parent's house and I bought 12 of each. Today I also made a solo trip to Ross to return two outfits my mom bought Noah that were too small. I went to the children's area to see if they had any others in his size and the kiddie section looking like a bomb went off. There was crap everywhere! Clothes, toys, baby blankets, you name it. And nearby there were four kids screaming the heads off and running around throwing toys at each other. They only way I could have found anything would be if I had cleaned it up and that wasn't happening. I made my way over to the dressing room and in the room was a 4x6 cork board for people to put pins on. Except the board was COVERED in used gum. Um. . .GROSS?!?!? I got dressed and got the hell out of there. I felt dirty and I wanted a shower.

Today I know about message boards

I have decided that I want to write about book. So I figured that the best way to get into the habit of writing would be to start blogging. Here goes nothing.I have repeatedly been told that you should write about what you know. While I know about a lot of things, at the moment I seem to the reigning expert on parenting/pregnancy message boards through ivilliage. I got into them when I was pregnant with Noah and became hooked. For the record, while I will admit to checking the boards several times a day, my goal in life is NOT to have "1,000 posts to the September Snuggle Bug 2004 Playgroup." But right now I do have 387 posts since I started posting in January 2004. And I also REFUSE to get a paid membership to the boards. As far as I can tell, the only reason people shell out money is so they can get a schmaltzy signature (siggy) that says "Mary, loving wife to Joe and proud mommy to Harmony, Symphony, Melody and Baby Orchestra EDD 5/13/05" with a cheesy picture of the happy (and musical?) family. And if you are going to pay for a membership and get someone to desgin you a siggy you will also need to get a few tickers that say things like "My baby is six months and 3 days old" or "361 days until our anniversary." And let us not forget the newest ticker on the market "My baby has been breast fed for 64 weeks and 3 days,". . .so we can brag about our accomplishment and make other mommy's feel bad for only breastfeeding for a few months. Now that I think about it, if you're going to get a siggy and a few tickers, you would be remiss if you didn't also include with your signature a minimum of 25 blinkies that tell people about yourself. You can find blinkies online that say just about anything. Now that the babies the message board are 6 months old, people are starting to talk about when they are going to start trying to conceive (TTC) their next child. So there are now a slew of blinkies that say things like "On Hold, TTC #6 Summer 2005," as if trying to conceive is anyone's business but your own. Or "I love my baby boy" or "Proud SAHM" (stay at home mom). And for the record, why doesn't anyone have a blinky that say's "Proud Working Mom?" Another popular blinky is "Jesus was breastfed." Speaking of breastfeeding, my personal favorite blinky is a photo image of this woman's child being breastfed that flashes between the baby on her breast and the length of time he has been breastfed. To me, this is more than I EVER NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT ANOTHER MOM AND HER SON! Why do I post on the boards. . . .that is another entry.