Things I Could Do Without

As much as I'm loving being a mom, and as much as I ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY, COMPLETELY love my daughter... yes, there are some things I could do without...

~ Spit up. Jordyn's a very spitty baby, and it's so annoying. It's not just that it creates a ridiculous amount of laundry. It gets everywhere. Like the floor, the couch, the pillows on the couch, my clothes, her clothes, her sheets, my sheets, her blankets, the burp cloths (of course), my hands, my arms, my breast (when she spit up while still nursing)... I could go on. It smells bad, which means she smells bad once she gets it on her clothes (and so do I). I try to keep her upright for a while after eating (which especially sucks in the middle of the night when I just want to go back to sleep!), but it doesn't seem to help. Today I put her in a cute outfit, but she spit up all over it literally before I picked her up. So I changed her into a second outfit, and she promptly repeated the spit-up routine. So I changed her into a third outfit. She spit up AGAIN, but it wasn't too much so she didn't get too wet so I left her in that outfit. But come on. That's ridiculous! Three outfits in about five minutes, before ever getting off the changing table. Ugh. At least she's mostly a "happy spitter", meaning I don't think it really bothers her too much. As it's been said, spit up is usually a laundry issue, not a medical issue. But still. Yuck.

~ Speaking of "yuck"... blow outs. Something else I could most definitely do without. She's already had a few huge blowouts, and yesterday I actually contemplated cutting her onesie off of her and throwing it away, rather than try to take it off over her head. We managed to figure it out, but she went directly into the bathtub! She was covered in poop, literally up to her elbows. So far, all blow outs have happened at home or at my parents' house, not when we're out in public, but still. Yuck.

~ Sleep deprivation. Need I say more??

~ That fact that Jordyn won't take a pacifier. I KNOW it would help her settle when she's cranky and/or tired, but she refuses to take one. I've tried multiple kinds, in all types of situations (upset, not upset, just eaten, etc.), and she just isn't interested. Sometimes it even makes her gag. She'll sometimes suck on her fingers, usually when she's hungry, though, not as a calming thing. While I don't love the idea of her being a thumb or finger sucker (you can't take those away when you want to wean her off of it, like you can a pacifier), it would be good for her to be able to calm with some sort of sucking that doesn't necessarily have to involve me. Because here's the thing: she'll nurse for comfort with no problem, and it always helps her settle when she's cranky and/or tired, and usually she'll even fall asleep. So I'm her soothing method.  Which is nice, that I can do that for her, but what's going to happen when I'm not around and she needs to be soothed?? Once I'm back to work, and my parents are her caregivers (they've agreed to try to do all of it, at least while she's really young), how will they help her to calm when she's upset when they can't nurse her?? I'd really like her to learn to like the pacifier, but so far, no dice.

~ The fact that Jordyn hates her carseat. She almost always cries when she's in it (unless she's sleeping, of course), and she often screams absolute bloody murder when we're in the car. Sometimes she's quiet when we're moving, although often she screams then, too. But she almost always screams when we're stopped, like at a red light or in traffic. And I'm not talking about crying, or even crying hard; she screams like I'm pulling her toenails off one by one. It hurts my heart. It makes ME want to cry. And I don't know what to do about it. I've tried everything - talking to her, singing to her, all different kinds of music, turning the music up, turning the music down, no music, white noise, windows down, windows up, a staticy radio station. Again, no dice. I'm hoping she grows out of this, because I hate feeling like I don't want to drive anywhere because I can't handle listening to her scream like I'm torturing her. So far I've just been trying to go places when she's sleeping or when I think she'll fall asleep fairly quickly in the car. And if she's awake and in her carseat when we get somewhere (like to go grocery shopping)? Forget it - we just can't do it.

~ The fact that Jordyn hates both babywe.aring devices I own. So for those of you who read the end of the above paragraph and thought, why not just wear her when you get to the grocery store? Yeah... she doesn't like that, either! I have both a bo.ba wrap and a be.co gem.ini carrier, and she cries and screams when she's in those, too. If I put her in them when she's asleep and she doesn't wake up, we're golden. But if she's awake, forget it. And I've tried two different positions in the wrap, but it doesn't matter. She likes to be held, but not worn. I'm so hoping she grows out of this, too, and starts to like being worn as she gets older, bigger, and heavier!

~ The combination of her hating BOTH the carseat and the babyw.earing devices. Because at so many places, she either needs to be in the seat on the snap n. go stroller or in a carrier once we're there, like the grocery store, the mall, etc. I can't just carry her in those places, and right now I still pretty much need two hands to hold her, since her neck control isn't fully there yet. If she was ok with being worn, I could maybe manage dealing with her screaming in the car, because I'd know that she'd be ok as soon as I could take her out of the carseat and wear her when we got somewhere. Or, if she was ok with the seat, she could just stay in it the whole time. Right now, I just kind of can't go anywhere like to the grocery store, unless she's already asleep and I'm reasonably sure she's going to stay asleep for the whole trip. I ordered a thing to attach to her seat with toys to look at and play with, so hopefully that'll help.

~ Cranky time. Yeah, yeah, I know that all babies cry. But I just have to state publicly that it really sucks when your baby is crying (or fussing or whining or whatever) and you don't know why or what to do about it. Yeah, yeah, I know - common knowledge. But it happens pretty much every night, when I'm exhausted, and it's definitely one more thing I could do without.

Ok, have I complained enough? I didn't mean for this to be such a negative post, but I did need to get all of that out. Mostly I'm LOVING being a mom, and Jordyn is generally a pretty happy, good-natured baby, but she does have her moments and her hangups, and I'm thinking it's probably pretty normal for me to have a few things I could do without. But I most definitely couldn't do without her.