Notes to Maxine

As I mentioned in my Roblogging post, one reason I do this is so that someday Maxine can look at this record of her life and feel a huge amount of guilt over the suffering she put her mommy and daddy through.

No, no, that's not right. She will finally understand why her parents are such boring people, having seen what they have been through, and perhaps will not blame us quite so much for being who we are.

And so I have a few things to offer:

#1 Who did this?
#2 Ida Know. I've never seen that puke before. Please take it away.


I don't have any photographic evidence for the following behavior, but if it persists, I will.

Until recently, Maxine was very good about diaper changes. She would lie calmly, sometimes holding onto her feet (which can actually be helpful at some stages of a diaper change), and rarely pee or poop-squirt on me. But the past few days, she has become averse to it for some reason. As soon as I lay her down on her back, she tries to turn over. Considering that in January she couldn't turn over at all, she has become quite good at it. If I am quick, I can get her pants off, but by the time I am ready to reach for the diaper, she has flipped. When I put her back on her back, she is ready. She arches her back if I hold onto her legs. She wiggles lots. She cries as though she were being spanked. When I eventually get the wet diaper off, she usually manages to go over easy, then get up onto her hands and knees.

Now I'm in panic mode, because anything that comes out of her at this stage of the game ends up on her bed. You are probably thinking that I should have put something down first to soak up any accidents. Good idea, but she doesn't do this every time, and I haven't had an accident yet.

Oh, and if it hadn't occurred to you, this is even less fun when she has dropped a load into her drawers. I have had to bathe her from the waist down on a couple of occasions.

I'm really not sure what's going on here. Maybe she has spent such a huge percentage of her life on her back that she just doesn't want to do it anymore. She even sleeps on her side most of the time.
She generally sleeps quite well, though she's been fighting a cold for the past week and a half. The sniffling and coughing are not bad, but she has occasional fevers that are quite rough. Horyon has slept with Maxine on the floor for a couple of nights in the past week.

But as I said, she usually sleeps well. Not only that, she wakes up well, too. We have an electronic baby monitor that we use to listen in on her while her door is shut. That way, Horyon and I can do noisy things while Maxine is sleeping. Like clean the house, 'n stuff. In the morning, I usually know Maxine is awake when she starts whining and calling out for rescue, but sometimes she doesn't. Sometimes I will hear a sound from the monitor that makes me suspicious. I listen closely, and hear occasional knocking sounds, stirring sounds, and maybe a little baby "hmmm." When I go into her room, I usually find that she is wide awake, and keeping herself amused. The last time, I found her at the foot of her crib turned sideways:

She's happy to see me when I walk in, but not desperately, dog-after-all-day-at-work happy. Just happy, like "Hey, it's Daddy! How ya doin'?" happy.

Horyon and I are very much aware that Maxine is a good-natured baby. We consider ourselves to be truly blessed. But everyone has to have some naked baby photos and stories to hold over their kids later, right?

And she's getting better at standing. She can now pull herself to standing from a stationary object if it's the right height.

What a cool baby.

Peace,

Rob

p.s. Did I just write "What a cool baby?" Friends, being a parent changes you. No doubt.