There is a first time for everything

Evie's had some significant and not-so-significant firsts recently. On the not-so-significant end of things, we have had some unseasonably warm weather and thus Evie has been on her first stroller ride sans hat, jacket and blanket, and spent some time in our back yard for the first time. When she was a newborn and it was warm we mostly kept her inside the screened porch because the mosquitoes and chiggers are bad in our area in the summer and fall. I didn't put her in the grass for her first back yard experience this weekend because J was playing fetch with Phoebe, so I put her out of the way on the deck (which faces east and it was afternoon, so she was in the shade). Apollo thought "babies are awesome...they come with blankets!" Apollo is magnetically attracted to all things soft. Evie was momentarily interested in Apollo but was quickly distracted by the spectacle of Phoebe as a black blur rushing back and forth across her field of vision. When she was tired of watching Phoebe fetch she devoted the rest of her time outdoors to inspecting the different fabrics and patterns in the quilt she was lying on. Apollo was happy to snooze in peace. Other firsts:

• first time reaching out for my glass of water and tipping it over
  
• first time reaching out and grabbing a clump of hair out of Phoebe's chest; I am encouraged that Phoebe didn't seem to notice and remained calm, but it could be because she'd just had a bath and was shedding like crazy so it didn't hurt


• first time grabbing my glasses and pulling them off of my face


• she has "discovered" her girly parts; I didn't realize that girls do this just like boys. She's started reaching down during diaper changes and scratching at herself between her legs. It is very annoying when she's poopy or when I'm trying to put on diaper cream. This behavior has coincided with a rash, so I'm hypothesizing that the rash is itchy or otherwise uncomfortable and that's why she's scratching. Her rash is my fault because I normally don't change her diaper when she wakes up for a middle-of-the-night feeding since the change wakes her up more and thus makes it harder to get her back to sleep. But when she pooped in the middle of the night a few nights ago (another first) and I didn't realize it and didn't change her, the rash in the morning was horrible and made me feel like a tremendously crappy mom (pun intended).


• She's started to roll onto her side in her sleep and also to rotate in her crib. Last night I had to go in and rearrange her after she'd rotated a full 270 degrees from the position I put her in to start. Because of this new mobility I decided to take the bumper pads out of her crib until she's 6 months so that she doesn't roll or creep over to one of them and bury her little nose into the side. Deanna and I had a long e-mail conversation about this a few months ago and came to the conclusion that this is when bumper pads aren't safe: when babies are mobile but still younger than 6 months (since 6 months is the big drop-off in SIDS risk). Evie loves the view from the crib now and it, unfortunately, keeps her awake longer because she has so many things to stare at that used to be hidden by the bumper.


• She's beginning to learn to crawl; I know it will probably take her another couple of months to really get it, but she's started reaching her hands out in front of her, grasping something and pulling herself forward a few centimeters and also planting her toes into the carpet or a blanket and pushing off, propelling herself forward a few inches. This is called creeping, right? She's still not rolling from back to front, but she's working on it.


• Finally, and I hate to admit this, she's had her first solids. I thought I would be able to wait until she was 6 months, but the lure of an end to her spitting up was too strong to resist. I have had several people tell me she would stop spitting up when she started solids. I rationalized that she's been drinking Enf*amil AR (acid reflux formula) for months and that has rice in it, so adding rice cereal to her diet wouldn't really be introducing a new food at all! I'm a good rationalizer. I'm still telling myself that I'll wait until 6 months to try any other solids. Anyhow, the results have been mixed. The cereal does seem to reduce her spitting up, as long as she eats it right before she drinks formula or at the same time (spoon of cereal, chug of formula, spoon of cereal, etc.). I thought her tongue thrust reflex was gone because she isn't sticking her tongue out at us all the time like she used to, but starting solids disproved that idea because she did the classic "spit 90% of the cereal back out onto my chin and bib" routine the first couple of days we tried it. As of Saturday she finally seems to have gotten the hang of swallowing and ate a full tablespoon of cereal without leaving most of it on her bib. If the cereal continues to help keep formula in her belly we'll keep feeding it to her, but if it ends up not working then we'll drop it and try again when she's 6 months old.

And now for something completely different...I'm going to call Dr. G, my RE, tomorrow and go in for an ultrasound soon. I had surgery to remove a huge fibroid/cysts/endo at the end of May last year and at the time he asked me to come in after 6 months for a repeat ultrasound. I've been putting it off because of the holidays, etc., but AF is here right now and I'm miserable so I need to figure out what's going on. It's really depressing me that I'm dealing with this stuff so soon after surgery. My first couple of AFs after the surgery were fine, then the one right after Evie was born was horrible, then I had a couple more normal ones and the last couple are back to sitting watching TV with a heating pad in my lap and feeling sorry for myself. Now that we have Evie, I think that if the ultrasound shows lots of problems I would lean toward a hysterectomy rather than another ineffective laparoscopy. I might feel differently when it comes down to it, but grieving the loss of my uterus sounds easier than years of miserable AFs and a string of minor surgeries.