Spring League

Last weekend I played in the Chicago Ultimate Frisbee's Spring League. The league comprises 8 weeks' of weekend games in which each team plays two new opponents each week. One enters the league as an individual and based on a self-assessment of your skill you are assigned to a team of mixed ability. I was assigned to Team 13 and a photo of us is shown above. Unfortunately, we lost both our first games and I arrived home with a purple big left toe. I've had a purple big left toe before once when I was ski-ing and the nail fell off after a few days. I'm afraid that the same thing is going to happen again. Despite losing our first two games we had a lot of fun and all my team mates are really sound. I just hope that my big left toe stops being purple and that the nail grows back quick.

Mile markers

According to the book What to Expect the First Year, by the second month of life Lily should be able to:
*Smile in response to our smile
*Follow objects with her eyes
*Respond to a bell in some way such as startling, crying or quieting *Vocalize in a way other than crying (e.g. cooing)

And weirdly enough “may even be able to pay attention to a raisin or other very small object” (?).

We are on our way to full smiling, eliciting some partial smiles thus far, but that big happy grin still eludes us.

Meanwhile, she certainly can follow objects with her eyes and exercises this ability often with her trendy color-changing rubber duckies while splashing in the bath.

Better still, today we heard our first definite coos. For a few days we’ve been wondering if she were cooing or just making little cries before and after big cries. Today while we talked with Lily and helped her play with her baby gym, she was most definitely having fun, strongly kicking her legs and letting out little happy shouts in response to our voices and the squeak of the swinging birdy (see above photo).

As for the bell, we haven’t tried freaking Lily out by ringing a loud bell and don’t plan to. She responds to the birdy squeak and that works for us. And regarding the raisin, we aren’t in the habit of keeping any in the house, so we’ll have to get some and let you know later. I’m sure you’ll be waiting in suspense until then.

~

* See the webshots pages for new photos; links to the right.

Nipple Confusion claims another victim

We laughed when we read the breastfeeding articles that warned against Nipple Confusion. But alas, Nipple Confusion has had the last laugh:

Our baby is nipple confused.

She has realized that it is easier to suck on a bottle nipple (although this bottle brand is supposed to mimic the natural nipple!) and gets fussy when it comes time to feed from Mommy's all-natural breast. As she has suddenly hit a growth spurt, demanding almost twice as much food daily, she is ravenous most of the day. This, coupled with her confusion, has led to an angry baby.

Add in an immature digestive system that causes sleep-interupting tummy aches for Lily and a rough diaper rash last week and we have one big cry fest.

I am pumping my breasts day and night now to produce enough milk to feed this kid (from bottles only now) and am feeling much the cow.

Pray for your friends on Sawyer Avenue!

PS - We still really like Lily...especially when she is not crying.