Thank you so much everyone who left a comment or word of encouragement on my last post. Sometimes I don't know why I keep blogging and then, like the other day, people jut come out of the woodwork when I really need it. So THANK YOU!
Most of the time I feel like I keep things pretty positive around here and I force myself to see the humor in every day. Because as long as I'm laughing, I can't be crying! Ha ha. Ha ha. Laugh. Laugh.
So, speaking of laughing (and not crying), the other morning, I was enjoying some sleep after being up most of the night with Jonathan. The two of us were slumped wearily in my bed, both exhausted from a night of Jon's fussing. At some point during a cycle of shallow sleep, I felt a short, humid breeze trickle across my face. The breeze smelled faintly of milk and hot dogs. A bit disoriented, I forced one of my eyes open and took in the view of two dark and foreboding nostrils looming a mere hairsbreadth from my face. Somewhere below the nostrils, a two-year old's voice bellowed loudly, "GOOD MORNING JOSE!"
Startled, my heart jolted as if I'd just been infused with five cups of coffee (wouldn't that have been nice) and I jumped halfway out of bed. Ryan laughed, leaned back into my face, and said, "Hi Jose. I want pancakes."
"Sorry, wrong Jose," I exclaimed and laid my head back down on my pillow. By the way, who the heck is Jose?
"Mom, I'm hungry for breakfast!" Ryan was not going to let me out that easily.
I lifted my arm to the side table and fumbled around until I felt a small oval object. Bingo! I unwrapped the object and tossed it at him. "Here, have a raspberry cough drop." Happy, Ryan ran out of the room and I sank back into a valiant attempt to regain some sleep.
That's when I felt the warmth of a mysterious liquid seeping quickly all over my torso. It didn't take me long to find the source. I looked down and glared at the 12 pound infant sharing my bed. He also happened to be separating me from approximately 90% of the surface area of my mattress. But he was sleeping soundly and I was exhausted. So, I relished my sliver of urine-soaked bed and closed my eyes.
Of course, that's when Jacob busted through my bedroom door. "Mom! Ryan has a cough drop!"
"Stop tattling. Go away. I'm sleeping."
"Can I have one?"
"No, it's medicine. It's not for eating."
"But Ryan has one!"
"Seriously?!" I grabbed another raspberry-flavored cough drop and tossed it at him.
"Oooh, Thanks!" He was just about to walk out when he turned around and asked, "Mom, can we have pancakes?"
I thought for a moment. Then, having made up my mind, I grabbed the half-full bag of cough drops and tossed them at Jacob. His eyes lit up like I'd just handed him a 1,000 piece Star Wars Lego set. "Share with your brother! And don't bother me again until they are gone!"
I had peace. Finally! I also pretty much guaranteed that one of the kids will develop a cough in the near future. Because....I'm plum out of cough drops.
Sh*t: I wipe it, put up with it, and get it done. These are the adventures of a mommy lawyer.
As always I'm late to the party - I would also like to offer moral and possibly practical support for the horrible acid reflux from hell you are enduring with poor Jonathan. Judah had horrible colick/reflux from about 4 weeks to 14 weeks. It sucks so hard. As I mentioned before, I tried giving him zantac and it got worse. I switched to probiotics (baby acidophillus from whole foods) and it was like a freaking miracle. And a few other things that helped - swaddling judah really tightly and putting him in the ergo and bouncing on an exercise ball (this calmed him down 95% of the time and could also put him to sleep and helped him stay asleep for hours at a time). Nothing else worked to calm him and nothing else worked to nap him. He had to be upright, swaddled like a snug bug in a rug, and bounced (vigorously at first to calm him down and then gently once he got calm). Have you heard/watched Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby on the Block book or DVD? It's a colicky baby's parent's best friend. Also, I know everybody will tell you this is bad, but sleeping a baby on his tummy is very therapeutic if he has reflux or digestive issues. I always put judah on his tummy (prob starting around 3 weeks) because he slept 2-3 times longer. Everytime I tried laying him down on his back (swaddled and with loud white noise) he would wake up within 15 min or so - prob due to acid reflux probs. It didn't even help if he was napping at an incline. Only the tummy position helped him (there's lots of articles that explain why this is the case). Anyway, hope this helps! My first few months with Judah was a baptism of fire and taught me how to research all things baby-digestion-related like a freaking pro on the internet. Here is where I should prob give a shoutout to Google. And thank you interwebs.
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