Alabama Tracks

4 Generations

Big Bed

Grandma and Papa

Silly Papa

Lights Out

Dedication Family Pic

Service

Aunt Joanna

My Daddy and Me

Me

It’s a bit odd to realize that while you know where you’re going and that you know the people there, that the trip can still be wholly foreign to you is, well, disconcerting at best. I’ve known Ken and Chris for some 4.5 years and I’ve been to Florida many, many times but never to their new residence (as it exists now at any rate) and certainly not to stay there. In the mean time we’ve gone and stayed with Jan King and commuted to their property when we went and it’s been a good nine months since we last did so. That was Memorial Day, when Mike, Joy, Gigi and Larry came to visit and we sat in the sweltering heat in the land that Georgia forgot.

Since then? We’ve had a child, a building has been erected, paths have crossed and life has simply changed. Driving with a baby for some 6 hours who has barely been in the car for a few minutes at a stretch. I suppose I should have seen this next change comming. As I queried MapQuest for instructions to this strange place it suggested a different route. Not a little different, mind you. A lot. Normally we go through Florida for some 60% of our trip but this trip was some 70% in Georgia with less than 1% being in Florida itself. The route was foreign and yet I couldn’t ignore that the new route saved some 50 miles over our old route. Since our cheese was nowhere to be found I decided to take the new road. After all, what’s a bit more discomfort when you’re miles away from normal?

I have learned many things on this road

• Ruth will sleep pretty soundly as long as you’re moving
• There is a fair amount of farmland for sale in south Georgia
• This mirror is the most worthless baby product I’ve ever seen. If I were Eddie Bauer I’d sue for making such an awful product with his name on it. We had to buy a new one to replace it because it would fall down after 5 mins on the road
• Georgia has some interesting names for towns… Nashville, Enigma, Ty Ty to name a few
• The best laid plans of mice and men can often be detoured by two semis wrecking and killing the driver of one
• A minivan is in our future…

Eventually this new world will become familiar. More driving. More screaming. More 30 min feeding stops. But what a great road.

So yesterday was the 6 week benchmark. It doesn’t seem possible that that much time has passed. I’m certainly experiencing time flying by. So this week has brought about a couple of new things.

Tuesday, Joel and I decided we were going to try to go to dinner with the Sunday School class at a local restaurant. Knowing that from 4 - 6 pm was what is seeming to be the “witching hours” where she cries a lot. So Tuesday, at 5pm, the crying began. I tried everything to calm her including giving her the gas drops. By the time Joel got home, I thought for sure we would be at home instead of going to dinner. He wanted us to go and give it a shot seeing that Ruthie typically calms down in the car anyways. I fed her right before we left and hoped that I wouldn’t have to find someplace to feed her again while we were there.

All seemed to be going well for about the first hour and then it started to take a turn. Our food finally was delivered to the table and she started crying. I went ahead and had the waiter bring a togo box and the check. Seeing that she refuses to take a pacifier, we continued to rock her seat and hoped that she would stop. As we waited for the waiter to pick up our debit card and as I scarfed my meal down, a guy at the neighboring table turned around. “She’s not happy is she. She wanted white wine instead of red wine tonight.” He was trying to be funny and yet get a point across. No one at our table even had wine but I knew what he was saying. I politely told him that we were waiting on our check and proceeded to ask Joel for the keys to the car. About 5 minutes later, we were headed home. (We were out in the open in the restaurant and there wasn’t a good spot for me to breastfeed discreetly.)

I was a nervous wreck. She sensed it and only wanted her daddy to calm her down so she could go to sleep. It was very frustrating for me as this is the first time that I’ve had someone address me as a new mom. I know it won’t be the last time someone makes some wise comment but it was still difficult to deal with. I was very ready to go to bed.

Fast forward to today. This morning I had my 6 week check up. I hadn’t reminded Joel to leave me the car with the carseat base and so I called him when I woke up to find out. Sure enough, he hadn’t even thought about it. So yet another thing to do on my list to get myself ready, Ruthie ready, and a car seat to learn how to install alone, all on a time frame. I did better today and the car seat wasn’t as much of an issue as I thought it would be. So off to the doctor we went.

It turns out that I have lost all but 4 pounds of the weight that I gained. I was ecstatic! I’ve healed perfectly and Ruthie did great. He mentioned that I was probably one of a great many who have had such a wonderful birth experience and healing time. We met Joel for lunch and I fed Ruthie in the car before hand. Everything went well and I felt so much better knowing that I had lost so much weight already.

She’s growing like a weed. I put a new outfit on her that said it was a 3 months size but it just barely fits her. She may wear it one more time in the next couple of days and thats it. I believe it is just that brand though as the newborn outfit that I had of the same name, has already been put in a new pile not to be worn again. Shortly after we got home, we had a “poop fountain” that got all over me, the changing table pad, clothes, feet, EVERYWHERE! So I put her in an outfit that all of Tia’s kids have worn and it’s just a little big. Tia asked that I get a picture of her in it, so here it is.

Her hair is falling out in the front. It is as if she has male pattern baldness. The front has fallen out for the most part and the back is just as long as ever. You probably can’t tell from this picture though. Hopefully it will grow back quickly. Joel says that she may look like him but that she has my eyes. I still am not sure. I need to look at my baby pictures more closely but I can’t seem to locate all of the ones that I know will show it. I’ve thought about looking at the slides when we’re home in a few weeks but that will probably be out of the question seeing that they are in storage. Joel hasn’t had the priviledge of family slide night yet so it would be a lot of fun. Anyways. Maybe those that remember me as a babe will be able to determine if she has my eyes or not.

So I think that pretty much brings everyone up to date.

We went to the doctor for her 1 month well baby appointment on Tuesday. Joel and I were debating how much weight she had gained - he said she would be around 8 lbs and I said that she would still be in the 7 range as breast fed babies don’t gain weight as quickly. Boy was I wrong. She weighs 8lbs. 9 oz - exactly 2lbs from where she was when she was born. She also grew by 2 inches exactly. So though she is gaining some weight in her legs, fingers, and face (the places where they appear obvious to me) she still is a little bean pole.

The doctor also gave me some Levsin drops to help with her intestinal gas pain that has kept us awake for so many nights. We have determined that she is dealing with colic albeit a mild case. The gas that she is dealing with is not in her tummy which is why the mylicon drops weren’t helping. The past two nights when we have used the Levsin drops, they’ve worked almost instantaneously and we are able to get to bed earlier and thus Mama is much happier. I feel so much better and I’m sure she does too.

I hadn’t mentioned it, but apparently my thoughts weren’t crazy. When her stump fell off, her belly button just stayed out. It never went in and has since gotten what I consider large. It kinda looks like a boat tie off. Standing up about an inch off her belly, it is rounded at the top. Come to find out, she has an umbilical hernia. It doesn’t hurt her and we can push it in without any discomfort. Apparently, her belly hasn’t completely come back together. The doctor said that she we should embrace it, take pictures of it, and love it. It will probably go away by the time she is 5 and if not, it will be a very minor surgery. In fact, he said that he will probably want to push it in every time he sees her because he likes the way it feels. So - no big deal. It’s a Ruthieism.

Here is the most recent picture I took today. She’s smiling! And look at her hands - they’re getting chubbier.