Down to Wild Dunes

With Kate heading back to work soon, we wanted to take advantage of her maternity leave to spend some time with Ga and Pappaw down at the beach. Here are a few pictures and a video of our week-long trip. 

Some quick highlights...

Hattie had a bit of a brain awakening during our visit. With all the extra attention she got from her grandparents, she gave a lot less of the infant stare-through-you (those baby eyes can seem so vacant while all the brain energy is focused on building neural connections on the inside...Paul has called it reptile brain, a phrase which makes Kate - and pretty much everyone else - bristle). Hattie started making eye contact, seeming to focus on things around her, showing early signs of mimicry by sticking out her tongue in response to you doing the same, and sneaking in the occasional smirk to hint at the coming social smiles.

As to be expected, the sleeping has remained tough as she approaches the two-month mark. Of course Kate takes on the brunt of that. But Paul did chip in most mornings, strapping Hattie onto the Papa-Papoose, encasing her with blankets, and taking long sunrise walks on the beach. Over the course of the trip we expect we clocked somewhere around 20 miles of bjorn walk time. It remains the sure-fire way to get Hattie to sleep without her Mama's involvement.

As always, Clara had a blast with Ga and Pappaw, reveling, too, in the extra attention. The most notable event with Clara has been her small victory over the fear of ocean waves. The past few trips have been marked by daughter one refusing to venture near the water, with the sometimes exception of tiptoeing through tidal pools.  That has been in stark contrast to how eagerly she jumped in during previous visits. Again, as we've learned over nearly three years, the only constant with a toddler is change. Nothing seems to last too long, and so it is with the fear of waves. 

After a few walks on the beach, during which she avoided ocean contact, she bravely walked to the shore and announced triumphantly, "Ocean, I'm ready!" Clara was soon wallowing deep, venturing first to the edge of the cold water to get her toes wet...then her ankles...then even a bit more.

Did Hattie Just Smile?

Over the past few days we think we've seen hints of smiles from Hattie that seem to be independent of any gastrointestinal causes. We're ready to call it...today, January 10th - at the 5 1/2 week mark - we have real smiles from Hattie! 

This morning she gave some stunning grins, but given that it was during feeding time, they weren't exactly picture appropriate. We'll work on getting some family friendly photos online, and in the meantime we'll share these shots captured shortly after she flashed her gums.

Clara Makes Pancakes

For Christmas, our friend Cleremont (she who was pooped upon a few years back) gave Clara an Eric Carle book about making pancakes. Clara has been captivated by the idea ever since, and so we picked up some mix on a recent trip to Trader Joe's.

Chef Clara helped Sous-chefs Mama & Daddy in the kitchen, producing a delectable treat - complete with blueberries - which she immediately donned "D-eeee-licious." 

Attack of the Mastitis & A Video Blog Entry

Life in the Dryden household ground to a halt for several days when Kate came down with a particularly fierce case of mastitis. As is her way, she attempted to ward it off with will power, but when the fever spiked at 103 degrees and she had two straight nights with no sleep...well, even the strongest of us need to call in the cavalry from time to time.

Enter Ga and Pappaw who rush up from the beach and show the value of having a couple extra pairs of hands to keep up with chores, chase after a two-year old, and tend to an ailing Mama. 

Paul made his own feeble attempts to help out, too. And, of course, he documents his small contributions so posterity might be fooled into believing his part amounted to more than a few short walks with Hattie around the neighborhood in the Man Womb, aka Papa Papoose. 

He who writes the story controls the history.  (Insert evil laugh here.)

The Bottle Skills

Clara Inspecting THE PUMP for Mama

With the new year comes the need to learn new skills and refresh old ones. The new ones: Hattie learning to take milk from the bottle and Clara learning how to deliver it. The old ones: Kate remembering all the drudgery of THE PUMP and Paul getting involved with the baby feeding routines.

Bubble Bath as Peacemaker

The every-other-night (give or take) bath routine was under major attack by our two-year old. Much like putting on and taking off clothes requires a showdown twice a day, Clara saw bath time as an opportunity to exert some control over her world. Suffice it to say, Daddy and Mama were getting nearly as wet as Clara.

Then we reintroduced bubbles and bath time becomes the highlight of the evening. Clara even delights in sharing the occasional handful of bubbles with Hattie.

One Month with Hattie

The Family Womb

One month ago today Hattie broke from Kate's womb, found the new environ decidedly less pleasant than the old, and has set about recreating a facsimile of the home she knew exclusively for nine months. Her singular tool, the shrill infant cry, has proved remarkably effective at managing the behavior of those around her. And so, as the man with only a hammer, she wields it liberally and watches as these longer-limb minions jump about as if each scream were a prod doling out electric jolts.

Yes, one scream at a time, Hattie has each family member doing her bidding. While biology makes it impossible to wrap her back in the comforts of the amniotic sack, she has created what we'll call the Family Womb. In the course of one month - and with only the most primitive of tools - Hattie has cordoned these three people to a confined space, limited their interaction with the outside world, and thereby monopolized all their attention and energy to satisfying her needs and desires. 

Kate, Paul and Clara are often seen rushing around the house at any hour,  almost certainly still in pajamas, disheveled and unshowered, seeking some way (any way!) to quell the crying. As such, Hattie finds herself constantly in the warm embrace of a parent, often being satisfied with a suckle. Like Clara before her, she has largely avoided the solitude of the bassinet, eschews sleeping longer than an hour at a time, and enjoys the unending entertainment of Mama and Daddy jumping about like Skinner pigeons hoping the panicky flaps of their wings will somehow stop all the crying.  

Thus, a nine pound infant girl with nothing but a shrill cry has managed to maintain a semblance of the womb experience deep into her fourth trimester.   

This Chortling Piglet, This Gurgling Cod

With one Hattie month under our belts, we're slowly remembering some of those finer details of parenting infants. Most salient is the dominance of the GI tract. It's as if the sole purpose of the previous 30 days is to get Hattie taking food through her mouth, extracting what she needs from it, and then pushing the excess through gut and out the hatch. 

Let's give due credit at her accomplishments on activities A and B. She has proved quite effective at feeding, easily surpassing her big sister's abilities at the same stage three years ago. And those rolls of baby fat extending from her thighs, having appeared only recently, are testament that she's getting the proper nutrition from Kate's milk. 

But getting rid of the excess has proved more challenging. We've come to interpret every half-smile on her face, furrow of the brow, kick of the legs, and contorting of the body to mean she's trying to push a bubble up or force it down and out. We recall watching the same movements from Clara as an infant and wanting to attribute it to some early developmental achievement (i.e., Look, our brilliant daughter is already trying to crawl at two weeks! ...or... Clearly, she's smiling as an early sign of perceiving the world around her!). 

That first-time parenting hubris is gone. We now recognize that the smile-like expression is a precursor to geyser-like spit-up, and we stand ready with a burp cloth. The rapid churning of the legs? Major poop coming. Definitely. And when it comes, the squishy sounds...that's what we mean by gurgling cod.

The chortling takes us away from her GI tract and up all the way to respiration. Hattie's nasal sinuses have been swollen or blocked for much of her short time with us. We've discovered that babies breathe almost exclusively through their noses, especially during a feeding session when they're attempting to coordinate deep gulping with the occasional breath of air. So Hattie's almost always produces what sounds like a piglet chortle or a wake-time snore as she takes in oxygen. 

It's quite endearing for the most part but she's clearly not enjoying it as much as we are (especially when she got her first cold just before Christmas). Since Clara didn't have this challenge, we've had to learn to use the newborn nasal aspirator, a blunt but effective instrument you shove into the child's nose to suck out all the snot. The cold also required we put saline drops directly into Hattie's nostrils, another experience that just doesn't look very pleasant. So no surprises that our baby has developed a reflexive jump every time she sees anything come near her nose. 

On Being Mama; On Being Daddy

Here's the brutal reality Paul recognizes with the second child: the demand on Mama is more than double what it was with having one child/one infant. The first child still wants plenty of Mama attention and even on her best behavior is pretty miffed at the new found competition for her affection. And, of course, an infant has demands that render a Daddy effectively worthless. 

Without question, Kate is carrying AT LEAST 115 percent of the load. How can it possibly be more than 100 percent? a mathematically minded person might ask. Simply put...the husband factor. With sleep deprivation, the blood curdling baby cries, the need to pick up the occasional extra chore, and the sulking that comes with going down yet another rung in the ladder...Paul's behavior has become increasingly infantile, thereby increasing the load Kate carries. She has a third child to care for.

Not that Paul doesn't try, but he expects all sorts of recognition for even the smallest contribution. Consider this...Each night Kate puts Clara to bed, going through the standard routine of reading stories, talking through the day, and laying together in bed until our daughter falls asleep. It's part of what Kate makes a point to do, ensuring that Clara still gets big chunks of time with Mama. Kate then takes Hattie, prepares her for the night, and settles into the night time process of feeding, burping, and tending to the seemingly constant stream of baby discomforts. There's little rest that comes with this. And the next day, despite working through severe sleep deprivation, Kate manages to juggle both children through activities that keep Clara entertained and Hattie well-fed and rested.

Never once will you hear a complaint. She's a soldier.

By way of contrast: This morning, after a leisurely breakfast and chance to read almost a full chapter in the book he got for Christmas, Paul took Hattie upstairs for a diaper change, competed the task, and immediately handed her back to Kate. Yet he proceeded to parade around the house as if he just summited Everest, sticking his chest up like someone should pin a medal on it.

Yes, 115 percent...at least.

Daddy with Hattie in the "Man Womb." This moment lasted 10 minutes. Where's his medal?

Departing Thoughts

Against all the odds, our first child has blue eyes. Given our family trees, we think the odds should be even lower that we produce a child with red hair. And yet - all early signs at least - Hattie seems to have that very color. Now Clara started off with black hair, lost it all for the better part of two years, and it came back as light brown. So we're not jumping to conclusions just yet.

In a sign of her advanced development (okay, old habits die hard), Hattie lost her belly button scab right at the two-week mark. She's a genius! All of her onesies still bear the mark of the purple belly button dye, however,  imprinted there after each diaper change during which we doused the scab with alcohol to both clean it and speed the shrivel. For the record, belly buttons are much cuter than umbilical cord scabs. Just saying...

There is plenty of upside to having a baby in December as you near the holiday season. One of the few downsides occur if you also have a two-year-old to entertain...you're stripped of all the activities upon which you normally rely for diversion, child care, and entertainment. Indeed, mothers' morning out took its one-month Christmas hiatus, story time at the library went on break, and even the museums closed in the time Clara wanted them most. Thank the stars that MMO starts again this week!  

Finally, below we've posted the second video/picture montage of Hattie's birth. We threw this together as part of the Dryden Family Christmas Video but must note its stark inferiority to the Franklin Golden production that debuted just hours after Hattie's birth.