Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day brain dump

Random thoughts are swimming around in my brain, so I'm going to dump them out here.

1. Eli has watched more baseball than I ever thought possible. After not having cable for...well, ever, I didn't realize how often baseball teams play! Goodness. They're on every night, it seems. It's to the point that I actually know some of the names of the Braves players. Eli swears he's been a Braves fan since he was a little boy, but we've been together for almost 9 years, and this is the first I'm hearing of it. Even though we're only two hours away, I have not yet been dragged to a game at Turner Field.

2. On that note, I also had no idea what WGN was until recently. It turns out that this is why there are so many Cubs fans, including Eli's best friend. How did they come to be broadcast nationwide? Recently, Eli has been turning to WGN to watch Newhart. No, I'm not kidding. And it's usually when I'm nursing on the couch, so I can't exactly get up and go to another room. I remember not really liking it the first time around, and I'm reminded why when the story line revolves around Stephanie and her boyfriend. Ugh.

3. Elsie is getting big. She has almost outgrown the newborn diapers. I challenged her last week to use up the five packs that we had before she outgrew them, and she rose to the challenge. Lots of dirty diapers. We had five packs total and a few that the hospital gave us--all gone now. And now we break into our huge stash of size 1 diapers.

4. Elsie's umbilical cord stump is still attached. I'm not really concerned, but it's been 18 days. Everything I read says that the average stay is 10-14 days. I guess the average gets that high because someone has to go long. Leave it to our Elsie to overachieve. I'm not really sure what to expect. Will is just fall off? I dont' know. Help?

5. My daughter is going to be a blonde. I know, I know. Looking at her pictures at birth, you would think we avoided this altogether, but as her hair is growing the roots are white. At first I thought silver, but I knew better once I realized what was going on. Eli's hair was white until he was 14-ish, when he hit puberty. And then it started darkening. I'm thinking that if we put off Elisie's first haircut, she's going to look like a punk rocker girl with blonde hair that is dark just on the ends. It could be a good look. Amazingly enough, I'm okay with the blonde hair thing. I think that God made her a brunette at birth so that we could bond, so that I could relate to her better (I openly admit that I tend to discriminate against blondes). It's a growing experience, I will grow as a person as Elsie grows as a blonde.

6. My in-laws were here this past weekend to spend some time with the baby. It was weird (but not in a bad way) on Saturday morning when MIL vacuumed, swept, and mopped my house. What was weird was how thorough she was. I think she spent more time doing that on a Saturday morning then I have spent all together since we moved into this apartment. It was nice, but made me feel inadequate as a house keeper. And I'm okay with that.

7. Elsie has a changing table. Mom bought it when she was here, and Eli thinks it's the best investment she could have made in our future parenting. I'm glad he's happy. Coco is also happy, as it give him another place to sleep.

8. Elsie has a rocking chair. MIL was going to bring one that belonged to her mother, Elsie, but they ended up buying a new one at Cracker Barrel. Shows how much I know. I didn't know the rocking chairs at Cracker Barrel were for sale. It's comfy, and Timmy especially loves to sleep on it. I think part of the attraction for him is leaving his white hair on the green cushions.

Okay. That's all I can think of for now. Thank you for letting me dump the contents of my brain. Happy Memorial Day!

6 comments:

Cheryl said...

I am thinking that the alcohol at each diaper change as suggested at the hospital, will help to dry it out and it will fall off. Does it look dry and crisp?

Jennifer Barnes said...

There is a debate on the rubbing alcohol. I have three boys. The first one, we used the rubbing alcohol and his stayed on for a long time (3 or 4 weeks I think??) and the second and third boy we never used rubbing alcohol and they both fell of around 6 or 7 days old. So... to each his own. I know that Becky Miller has some experience with one staying on for a long time, you might ask her. I think they had to get it silver nitrated off or something?

Stacey Greenawalt said...

My kiddos' cords fell off late, too. And they DO just...fall off, like a scab. When it's ready to go, it'll let go. I know I found Sunshine's stuck to the fold-down flap of her diaper one morning at about 3 weeks of age. Don't remember the other one.

Kelly said...

With Caleb..they told us alcohol at every diaper change, but his cord stayed on for 7 weeks. Thats a LONG time, finally we went in and the doc cut it off...she put a little silver nitrate on it so it wouldn't bleed. It's NOT painful for the baby at all, it just wasn't coming off. She had told me to keep cleaning and twisting etc...did that but oh well. His belly button is totally normal looking, nothing crazy happened with that.

With Hannah we cleaned with alcohol every diaper change, fell off at about 12 days I think.

Beaver said...

Well, we didn't really use the alcohol at first. It would have been nice had they explained that it was supposed to help dry out her stump, and then maybe I would have used it more religiously. So, we've mostly been doing the air dry thing, and it's still there. It is looking dry and crisp, but not so much around the base. I see progress, but not much.

The other day, I think it got snagged on something and it started to bleed. I was about to freak out, but I looked it up and turns out that a little bit of blood is normal. Phew! But, then I didn't want to put alcohol on it because I know how much alcohol stings when used to clean a cut. Catch-22, I guess.

I'm glad I'm not the only one, Kelly! We go back to the doctor in two weeks (one month appointment, but really it's at 5 weeks), so if it hasn't fallen off by then, I guess they'll handle it. And Jen, thanks for the tip about Becky--I have already inquired for some additional moral support. Haha.

Craig-Jen said...

If you're ever in town for a Braves game, you'd have a place to stay if you needed to overnight. We'll have everything baby-related after September :-) Before then, it's a toss up. Turner Field is nice and I've enjoyed all the games I've gone to so far.