The Poop's Gone Sour

This morning, I was talking with one of my honorary mothers, Cindy, and she was telling me about how she knew when her daughter was cutting a tooth. She told me that when Nyla's poop has a sort of "sour" smell to it, a tooth is shortly following. At first I thought to myself Nyla's poop always smells sour, but I kept Cindy's tip in the back of my mind.

Fast forward two hours to me changing Nylabear's diaper and the scent hit me. Literally slapped me in the face. It didn't smell like her regular, musty, poopy diaper (you're welcome for that description). It had a little extra kick to it; totally unpleasant and borderline tart. Is this the sour that Cindy was talking about?!

I am now on full-blown red alert! Oh Nyla, your first tooth may be coming! I think this deserves some extra snuggling today...well, anything is cause for extra snuggling with my girl.

PS: Nyla, mommy does not like staying up until 1:30 in the morning. Please go to sleep earlier tonight. Thank you.

The Second Time In Two Weeks

Well, our lovely Nylabear has pooped in her car seat twice in the last two weeks. Do you know how ridiculously difficult it is to disassemble a car seat? Damn Graco has this 8,000-point security system on the seatbelt, with 14 holes that it has to be threaded through to take it apart. And on top of everything, once you have figured out the Rubik's Cube of a seatbelt system, the last step is to remove a cover that holds the ends of the belts. This cover is ridiculous; you almost need pliers to pry the thing off. RIDICULOUS.

What's the stupidest part of the whole thing? Putting the car seat back together. It literally took me 20 minutes to put it back, and then I realized that I had threaded the FBI-approved seatbelt through the wrong slits in the seat. Grrrrrr...the seat has now been reassembled correctly after another 20 minute bout with it. It took Nyla maybe 6 minutes to blowout the seat with poop, 40+ minutes for me to put it back together after the wash.

You Would Think...

You would think that with starting to eat solid foods, especially prunes, that Nyla's digestive system would get it under control and she would poop easily. But alas, no and here is another mystery of infants. Yesterday, Nylabear was super fussy...I mean, F-U-U-U-U-S-S-S-S-Y-Y-Y. Nothing was making her happy except for a bottle. Unfortunately I mistook this as her being super hungry. Wrong again, Mommy.

Apparently her tummy was upset. How do I know? Well today, she took three massive dumps, that's how. How and when and what the texture is of her poop tells me everything about how my Nyla is feeling. Nyla taking three massive, peanut butter textured poops today tells me three things:

1. She feels better.
2. She was overfed yesterday.
3. She was very uncomfortable yesterday.

Congratulations, Nyla! Your bowel movements are the highlight of my life. :)

In another little portion of our lives, surprisingly not revolved around poop, Nyla is a star at church. She's well-behaved, smiles at the other people, plays quietly with her toys, and is all-around lovely. The funny part about Nyla is that she's quiet most of the service. But she's got a funny little intuition that tells her when it's a good time to start talking. And by "good" time, I mean when it is quietest. During prayer today, it was silent in the church; you could literally hear the boards creak. This is when Nyla started in on her talking. Just blabbing away, laughing, shaking her rattle, sucking on her fingers, etc...Right when the prayer was done, she was all done talking. We like to think she was saying her own prayers.

(To end this little blog, I would like to call your attention to some breaking news: Nyla has taken another dump, making that four poops for the day. She's now happily bouncing in her bouncy chair, poo-free.)

We're Getting Busy

I am finding it more and more difficult to find time to write this month! Lately I have just been super busy with Nyla, especially since she's becoming more mobile! Homegirl is just about ready to start crawling. She can get up on her knees and hands and just rocks back and forth for a second. Then she gets tired and flattens out on the floor.

There is definitely no leaving this girl alone anymore though. Not even for a second! She rolls all over God's creation, twisting around the bed, squirming all over the living room, etc...Right now, the safest place for our Nylabear is either with us or in her Pack-and-Play.

Also new in her life is that for real this time, she's teething. Crazy drool and she's always got something in her mouth: her fingers, blanket, toys, Okie, her (clean) diapers, spoons, anything! We're just waiting on her first teeth to pop on through so she can start chewing on things instead of just sucking them to death.

And lastly, Nyla has started eating real food. Her first food: prunes. We have to keep this girl regular! So now we don't have to add prune juice to her bottles...we're adding it to her rice cereal. Hello, smelly poops. If I thought it was heinous before, I'm going to need to find a stronger word to describe her poops now. Whoa STANKY.

Here are some pictures of our girl lately. This was her in her new outfit, sitting at Jimbo's bar...it's my dad's little bar on their back deck. :)

Any money in there?

Ooh, this looks fun.

Look at my redheaded baby!

She thinks she's all diva with her sunglasses.

Hmmm...how do I operate this?

Hi Grandpa! I miss you!

Get A Clue

We had a lovely weekend in Milton-Freewater with my in-laws. They were super happy to see Nylabear, and we took her bouncy chair so that everyone could witness the enjoyment of Nyla in it. It just brings a smile to everyone's face to see her nearly bounce herself out of it.

As we left the house, we were driving down the road and I said to Paul, "Honey, I think Nyla pooped." We decided that we would see if it continued to smell, reaffirming that she did indeed poop, and we would change her in Athena, just a few miles down the road.

Well, the smell stopped aerating through the car, and Miss Nyla fell asleep...like knocked out asleep. So we agreed that it was just a fluff (my nieces' word for fart) and we could continue on to The Dalles. Almost three hours later, we arrive at Paul's grandmother's house.

Me: Hi Ellen! Oh I'm so happy to be here! I gotta change the baby's diaper.


Grandma: Uh, yes Lizzie, I think you have it on your hand.

WHAT?! As it turns out, Nyla had pooped...and had been marinating in it. Gross! She had poop all over her buns, her back, shoulders, knees, feet, in the toes. Everywhere.

But to make this little experience even better, the poop had seeped from her outfit, down through the car seat, and through to the car seat base. It was literally everywhere underneath her. It was so far underneath her that we actually had to wash her liner to her car seat and power wash her car seat itself and the base. We set it out in the driveway to dry.

You would think that after five months of being a parent, we would have this whole "change-the-diaper" thing down. Apparently not.

Now we have learned lesson #593,293: if you smelt it, she dealt it.

Bonus note: check the picture below of Nyla being fed by Paul. This is proof that he is Mr. Incredible when it comes to feeding her rice cereal. Look at how happy and clean she is in the picture! I, on the other hand, am still an amateur.

The Polar Opposite

At the beginning of our Nyla's life, we struggled pretty good with constipation. It was painful to see her trying to push one out, and if she went a few days without a poop, that was okay.

It seems that Miss Nyla's body has switched directions, because now homegirl is pooping multiple times a day. Case in point, today I went to Target with my mom. Nyla had already pooped in the morning so I didn't worry about bringing the diaper bag into the store; she wasn't going to go. Oh how wrong I was. Nylabear decided to poop right in the middle of my shopping expedition. Thankfully my mom was with me, so I was able to go out to the car and get the diaper bag by myself. We all know that doing anything with a baby takes fifty times longer, so any chance I get to do something individually, I take it!

After Target, I thought to myself Okay Elizabeth, she's pooped twice now so we're good for the rest of the day. Incorrect again, Mommy. We drove to Milton-Freewater today, and en route, we stop at Paul's grandmother's house for about an hour to play and let Nyla stretch. She could have pooped anytime during the hour we were there, but noooooooo. I think Nyla heard us saying "Bye Grandma! See you again soon!" and started pushing out her dump. 10 minutes down the road, jackpot again for Nylabear!

Let's not even talk about the aroma of her poop right now. We've added rice cereal so the diet so the "notes" of her poop are even more emphasized and fragrant now. In layman's terms, it's heinous. But I'm much happier having a happy, pooping baby! Hooray Nyla, maybe your tummy issues are maturing! :)

More Food On Face Than In Tummy

Here's a miniseries of pictures I took this morning at breakfast to prove her messiness during eating. Notice how in some of the pictures, there is rice cereal in her nose. Lovely. What a disaster she is...but she's cute, so I'll forgive her.

(Really, I still think it's me making her such a mess. How I can't figure out a way to feed her like a lady is beyond me.)

Rice cereal from chin to nostril.

She's being cheeky now.

"Let's hug, Mom!"

"Oh I'm just hanging out, eating my clothes and bib."

"Mmm, delicious bib."

She thinks this is funny.

You can't see it, but there's some on her ear.

"Best breakfast EVER, mom!"