Back to normal

At the Denver Aquarium 

I drove Grandma Callis back to the airport this morning so it is time to get back to our normal routine.  How wonderful to have company that you love and can actually enjoy spending two weeks with.  It is sometimes a bumpy path getting back to our normal weekday routine where Joseph is at work and Perrin and I are a twosome with no Grandma to help me out, play with Perrin, and tidy our kitchen secretly when I am not watching (thank you mom!!).  This just illustrates one of the strange things about the daily task of taking care of a baby.  The days are very monotonous, but yet such small experiences you have with your child or things you observe them doing feel huge and hilarious, and you think you will burst for loving them.  But you don't.  What you do is keep feeding them, keep cleaning them, keep putting them to bed everyday.  The way everyday is monotonous, but at the same time so remarkable, confuses my feelings about being a stay-at-home parent.  

With limited ability to be spontaneous, I feel like my world has gotten much smaller since becoming a parent.  This is tolerable however because it has also gotten so much richer.  I am trying to relax more about Perrin's eating/napping/bedtime schedule.  We were spontaneously asked to an early dinner the other night...and, WE WENT!  We didn't get Perrin to bed early like we should have since she missed a nap that day, but we had fun, she had fun, eating bits off people's sandwiches and drinking water from Grandma's straw (hilarious), and we all survived the day.  The problem for me is feeling like no matter what I do for Perrin, I am probably not doing it right.  When we buck the afternoon nap time and go out on errands or to the library (because I have cabin fever!) I feel guilty for not respecting her schedule, but if I turn down everything that comes up because "it's Perrin's nap time," I feel like one of those parents who drowns themselves in their children's lives and ceases to exist for their own sake.  I hope finding the middle ground becomes easier with time...it must, yes?

As for the happenings while Grandma was in town...we went hiking with Perrin in her new backpack, we went to the Denver Aquarium, bowled, and dressed Perrin up in some of Tara and I's old baby dresses that my mom brought to give to me, aaand discovered that Perrin loves bubbles!  I don't know if she had more fun laughing at them fall or if we had more watching her.

 For months now we have been having diaper rash issues with Perrin.  We have tried different creams, oils, stripped diapers, changed diaper detergent, changed diaper wash cycles, tried disposables, and so on.  Her doctor said she just has really sensitive, dry skin.  We haven't nailed it all down perfectly yet, but her butt is looking less angry--which is good because it was seriously having some scary raging days where it just made you sad to see her little bottom.  

Here are the three things that are helping us--I think.  

1. No more coconut oil!  Parents on-line had raved about coconut oil, especially for cloth diapered babies.  We used it for a good while and didn't even consider that something so natural could be bothering her.  But I put the jar away last week and switched to olive oil (moisturizing and safe for cloth diapers).  This seems to be a good thing for her.

2. We stopped using disposable wipes.  I always bought sensitive skin, non-scented wipes, but they still have alcohol in them, plus ingredients that I don't recognize, so that seemed bad.  I got some soft cotton and cut it into squares.  Now when we change her, we spray a mixture of water, olive oil and a bit of tea tree oil on her butt and the cloth wipe, then just toss the wipe in with the dirty diapers to be washed.  This turned out to be much easier than I thought when I heard of folks using cloth wipes.  Secretly I always thought, "Come on! Cloth wipes?  That is overboard!"  But I was wrong.  Simply put, it is easy and cheap!

3. When her bottom is looking red and she is getting itchy from dryness, we are putting oatmeal soak in her bath.  I started out buying the Aveeno oatmeal soak, but it was expensive!  So I looked on-line and you can make your own by literally just finely grinding up oats, period.  Colloidal oatmeal that helps dry skin isn't anything special that you have to buy.  If you have oats, you have colloidal oatmeal--just grind it up to a fine texture and toss it in your bath.

Perrin moment of zen...

                                                                Huh?