I need to get that book before Simon is old enough to understand it. It's a classic.
Unfortunately, Simon had not pooped for some time, and it made for one of the hardest days we've had with him probably since that first month. He's generally been crabby lately since his napping has been suboptimal all week, since we started not swaddling him. He's been sleeping pretty well overnight, and even waking up happy for his overnight feeding some of the time, but napping has been hard, and he's been super grumpy.
This morning he seemed OK when he woke up, but got cranky. Then when Diana got up with him a few hours later, the cranky got worse. He had some awful, awful screaming fits, the kind that upset you because you can't quite understand if he's just being dramatic or genuinely uncomfortable in some way. As I've said before, Diana's reaction in particular is very visceral. This was not a happy place to be.
We tried taking a shower with him, because it sure chills us out. He really seemed to enjoy it, and doesn't even object to getting water in the face. We hadn't tried it in months, and he's too heavy to hold for long periods of time. I brought in a little plastic stool to sit on, and we had some fun in the water.
I've been in a minor funk of not feeling like myself, or being bored with myself, or something strange like that, so I felt like a little retail therapy might help. I needed to replace the LED lighting on my desk (lights my audio mixer) since, after 3,000 straight hours of being on, it died. I also wanted to take up Diana on getting a new desk chair, since it's long overdue. To Ikea we went.
Simon wasn't too bad in the car, considering traffic on the 405 sucked. People can't drive, merge or keep things moving here, by the way. Ikea itself wasn't that busy. We started off by getting some food, which was free for the baby (even though Diana eated it). Simon was flirting with some 6-foot blonde in line, and then had some mashed potatoes for the first time. He was all about that. Daddy was just there for the yummy chocolate cake.
I strapped up the Beco for the boy, and carried him around. It's a little more comfortable than the Bjorn, and did not cause nipple chafing either. It's a win. Simon slept through most of our shopping. It's funny how there's so much cheap stuff at Ikea, and I end up getting really high-margin stuff like LED lighting and this awesome star projecting hanging lamp for Simon's room (don't judge, it's awesome to behold).
He started to get cranky again on the drive home, and it was pretty clear that he was uncomfortable still. I wanted to think it was teething, but while there was much drool, he wasn't obsessively rubbing stuff around in his mouth like he did last time. But we did know that he hadn't taken a good dump in more than a day, and even his last one was unimpressive. Maybe that was it.
Getting him down for his last nap before going down for the night was not fun. More of the super intense screaming. He was just so angry and upset. His last feeding was filled with squirming and he wouldn't sit still. While tired out of his mind, it was pretty obvious that wasn't the whole story.
Then, just as I went to change him, diaper off, the pooping began. Three diapers worth. Yeah, it's pretty gross unless it's your own kid, but it was pretty amazing. And just like that, our happy little boy came back (it did take ten minutes). He was still tired, but happy again. We read him his books, put him in the crib, and he was good to go.
These kinds of days really test our ability to stay rational, help each other out and try to figure the little guy out.They don't happen often, but they're not easy when they do. I'm glad I've got such a good partner who is an excellent mom.
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