Micronaxx

Greetings, fellow Finnthusiasts. 🙂 Our normal pace of “More updates about a largely immobile bambino than anyone would have thought possible” has been slowed a little this week by the unexpected demise of ol’ dad’s hard drive. Fortunately I was able to recover everything (or very close to everything), and my big cache of Finn photos seems safe. Margot and I are busily queuing up entries on “Tot Pattern Baldness,” “Playing the Finnstrument,” and more. Oh, and I hope to have our wee man make his YouTube debut quite soon. Stay tuned!

I’ve hesitated to share this information for fear of jinxing our progress, but it seems to be sticking so here goes…Finn has graduated to sleeping up to 7 hours at a stretch at night! This is a particularly glorious development for Mom, because it means I actually feel like I’m getting decent sleep. For the past week or so, Finn has been lengthening out his first stretch of night sleeping, and once he goes down around 8 or 9 p.m., he sleeps until about 2 or 3 a.m. Hooray! Then he’ll nurse and go back to sleep until 6 or 7 a.m.
So we’re down to 1 middle-of-the-night feeding and keeping our fingers crossed that he keeps working towards an even longer stretch of uninterrupted sleep. I’m crediting not only Finn’s development, but the continued swaddling and the installation of light-blocking shades in his bedroom and our bedroom (where he currently sleeps in his co-sleeper, a.k.a. the bed’s sidecar).

It may not surprise you to find out that John and I have created lots of baby-related slang lately. Here are a few of the most-used:

• diaper burrito: the hermetically sealed plastic sack of diapers from the Diaper Genie II
• baby burrito: a tightly swaddled Finn
• cochecito: stroller (thanks to Adolfo and Romina from Argentina for this one!)
• cachetes guapos: literally “handsome cheeks” in Spanish, also from Adolfo & Romina
• Dipe/di-a-per: diaper. John likes to over-articluate, & I like to shorten words
• a trip to the lecheria: nursing
• snoozando: sleeping Finn (-ando being the equivalent of “ing” in Spanish)

Man, sometimes I’m really thankful that Margot asks about things instead of just wondering in silence. Really glad.
As we may have mentioned, she’s been incredibly diligent about recording Finn’s every feeding, nap, etc. in a pad called “the Captain’s Log” (after Captain Squirrelulon, of course). A few days ago I was listening to NPR and heard a funny bit about people trying to say things in foreign languages and the trouble that can result. Later I heard Margot exclaim,
“I… ‘I like to sleep on fat sailors, the ace up your hole’… Whaaat??”
I’d jotted down a couple of the funny mistranslations in the log (the only pen and paper within reach), but without giving them any label or explanation. I had to explain quickly:

• An American guy had gone camping with some Germans and tried to say, “I like to sleep on thick mattresses,” but he instead said, “I like to sleep on fat sailors”
• An Indian guy was trying to calm down an irate customer and wanted to say, “That’s your ace in the hole” or “That’s the ace up your sleeve,” but instead managed to say, “That’s the ace up your hole.” He said that this at least broke the tension. 🙂

Needless to say, if I write weird bits in the log again, I’ll take the time to explain the context!

When I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I really wanted to breastfeed Finn–there are so many health benefits, it’s far less expensive and easier to tote around than formula, and it’s great for mom/baby bonding. There was really no question in my mind. I found it very interesting that when we went to the breastfeeding class at the hospital, they spent a lot of time selling breastfeeding to us based on its health benefits (smarter kids, better immunity, less colic, etc.). They also (rightfully) discussed the facts about getting started breastfeeding. It’s not like falling off a log, to put it mildly. It takes work, and patience, trial and error, ice packs, and lanolin until you finally get it right. I appreciate all the breastfeeding moms I know being very honest with me about that–it helped set my expectations.
And now that I’ve been at it for a couple of months, what I find the most interesting is what the classes and the other moms didn’t mention at all, and that is that breastfeeding is also a very emotionally intense and sometimes fraught experience. I had no idea how many different emotions would be wrapped around nursing my child! When he’s super fussy, yelling and pumping his fists in front of my breasts instead of just calmly nursing, it hurts my feelings and makes me wonder what I’m doing wrong (answer: nothing! he probably has to burp!). When he’s nursing every 90 minutes or 2 hours, you feel like an indentured servant to your child, because you’re the only one that can nourish him. And of course you want him to thrive and be happy and healthy, but sometimes the sheer monotony of sitting still while he nurses for 30 min to 45 min at a time can really drive you up the wall. (I had to impose a boycott of NPR for awhile since that’s what I listen to while I nurse. We switched to the jazz station!).
It’s definitely a yeoman’s job–you just have to stick with it, work through it, and try not to take things so personally when it’s not going so well. And in my case, thanks to Captain Reflux, you have to get used to wearing a lot of spit-up breastmilk that you wish he was able to keep down!

Before having Finn on the scene, I was completely clueless about how much time and effort taking care of an infant entails. I wondered why moms at the grocery store or out and about looked so bedraggled and why they dressed like schlumps…Well, now I know why. When your baby eats every 2 hours, and it takes him 30 minutes to eat, then another 30-60 of playtime/getting sleepy before he finally goes down for a nap that might only last 30 minutes, you don’t have ANY time to do anything like take a shower or comb your hair. And if your baby’s like Finn, and takes spitting up to the heavyweight level, all of your clothes are going to be covered, to varying degrees, with spit up anyway, so why would you put on anything decent?

It kind of reminds me of when I moved to Seattle. Grunge fashion started making sense once I’d spent a couple months slogging through endless days of drizzle, ruining my shoes and destroying pant-hems with water and grime. Why not just buy all your clothes at goodwill and never bother to wash them?

I do, however, manage to shower, usually once John gets home and I have him to back me up. And thank God for lipstick: it’s the easiest and most effective way to pull myself together before I go out, in an attempt not to look completely worn out. I think the lipstick must distract people from the dark rings around my eyes.

A lot of our parent-friends told us about Harvey Karp M.D., author of “The Happiest Baby On The Block”. It’s a book about how to help calm and soothe your newborn, and the techniques in the book are also designed to help your baby sleep longer and more soundly. We have Dr. Karp’s instructional video as well as his book. I have 6 words for Harvey:
Dr. Karp, you are a GENIUS.
We are using most of the tools and techniques to calm Finn down when he spirals into a meltdown, and to keep him asleep during the night. Swaddling and “shooshing” are the techniques we use the most, and man do they work like a charm. The swinging and sucking (pacifier) layered on top are almost 100% guaranteed to result in Finn becoming absolutely placid and most importantly, asleep when he’s fighting it. Swaddling alone has resulted in Finn sleeping an extra 30 min to an hour between night feedings, and has also added some time to his naps. The shooshing and swinging help get him in the mood before I lay him in the crib. Honestly, we would be up a creek without Dr. Karp’s insights.
Just today I have avoided or shortened a couple of near-meltdowns prior to naptime, making the Nack household a happier and calmer place. Let’s hope we can keep it up!

Finn and I went to the New Moms Support Group at the hospital today, just to hang out with some other moms and babies, and to get out of the house. There were a TON of folks attending, probably 20 moms and their babies, ranging from 3 weeks to 7 months old. It’s a nice place to meet and chat with other moms, and I walked away with a few good tidbits of information that I wouldn’t have otherwise known:
1. Finn is a tiny colossus! Compared to most of the other babies, even the ones that are 4 and 5 months old, he is much bigger and more robust. He could take on any of those head-controlling, sitting-up wimps any day! I honestly had no idea he was so big for his age. The other 7-week old baby in attendance was tiny in comparison! His size is deceiving–maybe that’s why John and I keep expecting him to start reciting Shakespeare, practice his stand-up comedy routines, and start driving the car any day 🙂 [Seriously, last night I dreamt that he helped me assemble a crib! –J.]
2. The Miracle Blanket–my new answer to the problem of Finn being too big for the receiving blankets I’ve been trying to use to swaddle him. He keeps busting loose because the blanket is just too small to properly bundle him up and stay tight. A few of the other moms use the Miracle Blanket and swear by it, and one even had an extra that she just dropped off for me to try, so we’ll give it a shot. Basically it has extra little flaps to help keep baby’s arms straight down by his sides, and is extra long so you can wrap it around his body 2 times instead of 3/4 time like the receiving blanket.
3. It is (unfortunately for me!) totally normal for Finn to be eating every 2 hours at this stage. Babies need to eat 8-12 times a day depending on size/age, so he’s totally average. The good news is that he goes longer at night between feeds, and lets me sleep for 3 hours or so at a time.

Otherwise known as the Six Degrees of Aggravation: relaxed (or not-so-much) states of Finn, in high/low order of magnitude:
1. Beet-red faced howling, fists and legs pumping furiously
2. Periodic squalls, fists clenched, body stiff as plywood, fighting sleep
3. Smallish fussy whimpers, fairly relaxed body except for those fists (still fighting sleep)
4. Awake, aware, calm, possibly smiling and cooing (a.k.a. “nice to be around”)
5. Drowsy and relaxed (mom’s almost tricked me into falling asleep!)
6. Limp as a wet lasagna noodle, hands open, snoring
[Dad puts us at about a 3.6 right this minute. 🙂 –J.]

All experienced parents tell you that all the trials and tribulations of the first several weeks are worth it, and practically disappear from your memory as soon as your baby gives you his first real smile.
I don’t know if my memory banks will be wiped completely clean, but I will say, now that Finn’s started smiling, it really does light me up inside and out. He is just so darn adorable when he decides to break open a big wide smile that goes all the way up to the corners of his eyes, and reveals that little dimple on his left cheek. He’s just recently started to purposefully smile–totally distinguishable from “practice” smiling or sleep grins. What’s weird is that he’ll even smile while he’s spitting up (?!). (Sometimes, that is.)
Long live the baby smile! We love knowing that our boy is happy.

Finn makes a lot of noise when he sleeps. I mean a LOT. And there’s a definite cycle of sounds that he goes through when he is in REM sleep (vs. the deep, limp-noodle slumber). He goes through a series of grunts, throat-clearings, squeaks, sighs, squawks, and other vocalizations. I liken him to Aqua Man–who had the power to communicate with fish…
But while Aqua Man used only his telepathic brain to communicate with anything aquatic, I think Finn is more specifically communicating with pods of migrating whales. We haven’t yet narrowed down his specific whale song, but I think it’s either gray or humpback whales. We are kind of waiting to see which breed shows up at our doorstep at 3am, asking to chat with Finn. We’ll let you know who comes a-callin’.

Normally you’d think a “knuckle sandwich” doesn’t sound too appealing, but to Finn there’s nothing finer.
To date he’s struggled to find his mouth with the proverbial two hands and a flashlight. Now, though, he’s getting closer, closer to tasting the sweet succulence of his fingers anytime he’d like. His latest technique is to use one hand to support & boost the other towards his lips–a very cute little process as he grunts slowly towards his goal.
Unfortunately it’s a very hit-and-miss affair–where hits include foreheads, cheeks, and chins (his own and others’). I feel like I’m watching the X-Wing pilots during the Star Wars finale: “Al-most theeerre… Al-most theeere…” “Stay on tar-get, stay on tar-get…!”
I haven’t been able to catch our man in the act photographically (it’s like trying to catch the appearance of his dimple–something a team of wildlife photogs would set up in a deer blind for two months to glimpse), but I’ll keep trying.