The Misses Watts: April 2011

A couple of incidents worth recording for embarrassment or amusement sometime in the future:

   The whole family was at Megan's house a little over a week ago. Emilia wanted something from upstairs, but I was nursing Mira and Steve was in the middle of a game of Super Smash Brothers, so Ben was a nice uncle and said he would go up with her to get it. Ten or fifteen minutes later, we realized that neither Ben nor Emi had come back downstairs and I wondered whether we should see if Ben needed to be relieved, so when Steve was done with his game, I made him go up and check. Ben came down a minute later, walked into the room where I had been chatting with my mom and says, "So...I wiped my first bum today."
   "Your daughter's, you mean?" I asked.
   "No. Yours."
   "What happened?"
   "Well, we were playing, and she said she needed to go potty. I would have come and gotten you, but it seemed kind of urgent, so I took her in the bathroom. She just kind of stood there, so I asked her if she needed help."
   Then Ben strikes a know-it-all-girl pose and in a know-it-all voice (being Emilia), says, "Yes. Pull down my panties." (She was wearing a dress, so no pants to deal with anyway.)
   Ben continues in a rather sheepish tone, "So, I pulled down her panties."
   As know-it-all Emilia, "Now put me on the potty."
   "There wasn't a seat, so I put her on and she told me I had to hold her there, so she didn't fall in. When she was done, I took her off and she does this."At which point Ben sticks his bum out. "Do I need to wipe your bum?"
   "Yes!"
   "So I wiped her bum."
   When I was done laughing, I thanked him for helping her and apologized. I'm sure it was way funnier to see Ben telling it, but I just had to record it. :)

Story 2:
Today I decided to brave Walmart with both the girls. I guess I was feeling brave because it had been a good morning. I knew I was going to have the girls all by myself until bedtime because Steve had stuff going on tonight, so I really wanted to get out of the house anyway.
   We get to Walmart and I get most of the stuff I need while Mira is sleeping in her carseat. She wakes up while I have just a few more things to get and after a few minutes, I hear her poop.
   I think, "Good! She needed to poop," because she's only pooped once since the suppository incident. That last one was a fairly normal bowel movement, and I had read online that breastfed babies can go a long time between bowl movements because they can use most of the nutrients from the breastmilk. She hadn't been uncomfortable like she was before the suppository incident either, so I didn't think much of hearing her poop, except what I already said.
   Well, I'm getting the last two items on my list and Mira is starting to really cry now and doesn't want her binky. So I think, "I'll take her into the bathroom and change her diaper, and then hopefully she'll take her binky at least until we get out to the car so I don't have to try to breastfeed somewhere in Walmart."
   I grab the car seat with Mira in it, Emilia with her fairy Barbie, the diaper bag, and my purse, out of the cart and haul everything into the bathroom where I pull out the changing station. I move the blanket that was covering Mira and I see a big sploch of poop on it. "Great! She blew out. I hope it's not bad," I think.
But it was bad. Really bad.
   I set a changing pad on the changing station and get Mira unbuckled. As I pull her out, my hand gets covered in poo. She has it all the way up the front of her onesie to her armpits and halfway up the back of her onsie, too. It's also leaking through her pants down her pants-legs. All I can think is "Oh, gross! Oh, gross! Eww, ew, eww!"
   By the time I actually get all of her clothes and her diaper off, Mira has poop down both her arms, both her legs, covering her belly, her back, and her bum. It's even pooling in her belly button. My hands are full of it, the changing pad is smeared, and I can't leave her lying there to wash my hands or get a plastic bag to put her soiled clothes in. So I grab the wet wipes and start wiping her down, which of course makes her scream like a banshee. I swear I had to use like 15 wipes just to get her looking like she didn't have yellow skin!
   This whole time, Emilia, in typical Emilia fashion is accosting every woman that comes into the restroom by blurting out, "My sister is poopy! Her name is MEER-ah. She is yucky because she's poopy." Or she shoves her Barbie in their face and says, "This is my fairy Barbie; her name is Elina. My sister is POOPY." I have to try to get her to stay by me because she tries to follow them into the stalls and keep talking.
   I finally get Mira cleaned enough to put a diaper and clothes back on her when I realize that there is no change of clothes in the diaper bag. I had to use it a couple days ago and forgot to replace it! So I have a baby who is wearing nothing but a diaper and (thank goodness she didn't get them, too) her socks and only the blanket I had thrown over her carseat to wrap her in. It's 39 degrees outside and WINDY!
I decide that I'm going to have to buy something to put her in--thank goodness it's Walmart and it only cost me $3--so I wrap her up in my remaining blanket and go to put her in the carseat to wheel us back to the baby department when I realize that her carseat is covered in poop, too!
Out come the baby wipes again (because, of course, the paper towel dispensers are completely out of paper towels). I scrub down the straps and the bottom of the carrier as best I can and set my sweet, smelly baby in it.
   We get back to the cart and I go to set down the carseat on the front of it when I realize there is something yellow and runny that has pooled on the plastic seat that you put down when you want your kid's legs to go in the holes. Yes, that's right, the poop leaked out of the carseat and dripped down onto the cart! More wipes go to baby-wipe heaven, and we're finally on our way to the baby section.
   I pick something out, put it on her right there in the baby section and head for the checkout counter.
   Thankfully, Mira takes her binky and I don't have to try to breastfeed her, too. By this point, though, Emilia is tired and hungry and on the verge of a breakdown. But we make it out to the car, I throw everything in, buckle the girls and we head for home. Mira falls asleep, and I hear Emilia say from the back seat, "I smiled at her, Momma." "Oh, good," I tell her and I swear, within two minutes, I hear snoring. Looking back, Emilia is out cold in her carseat! She falls asleep in the car maybe once every couple months. She had to be exhausted!
   Now both girls are bathed and in bed, and I'm ready to hit the hay, too. Goodness. What a day!

Well, it has come to my attention that the title of this blog is no longer incredibly appropriate. But, I don't want to get a new blog and then have to re-invite everyone and generally mess with the workflow already in place. So I'm going to re-title the blog, even though the address will be the same. I hope you can all be lenient on my laziness. :) I might have to try on a few titles before I get it right, but for now (I'm reading Jane Eyre, whose writing gave me the idea), I'm going to call it The Misses Watts. Mostly because we have Miss Emi and Miss Mira, which I call them 90% of the time. If anyone has suggestions for a better title, I would love to hear them!

Below are photos of the two Misses Watts. The ones of Mira were mostly taken within the first week. Since then, I've been pretty consumed with trying to figure out her diet via my food intake and/or formula. It seems that she has an intolerance to milk and soy and that wheat and eggs irritate what I think is acid reflux. We finally got in to see the doctor today and she gave us some medication for the acid reflux, so hopefully we'll see some improvement in the near future. If I can just add wheat back into my diet I will be happy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to give up milk and soy for the entire time I breastfeed, though. The milk that she got through formula gave her a rash on her face and the soy formula made her vomit up everything she ate and gave her such bad constipation we had to give her a suppository to help her get it out. It's been quite the adventure!

Emilia seems to be liking her sister well enough. She is acting up by being rebellious, but she doesn't seem to resent her sister at all, so that's nice. Other than that, things are going pretty normally. Still lacking sleep, but you kind of have to expect that for the first few months.

Thanks everyone for thinking of us! It's been nice to hear from so many of you. All of the gifts have been appreciated and you will be getting Thank You notes soon, I promise. :)

Now for the pictures I promised.