A Weekend of Lessons Learned

Well, so far it's been an interesting weekend full of lessons learned.

First, we're trying to "break" her of the car seat since one of our prospective babysitters told us a horror story about another family whose child had to go through physical therapy because his neck was messed up from too much time in the car seat.

So, of course, our experiment in reintroducing the Snuggle Nest has completely destroyed the sleep routine - to the point that we went back to the car seat again last night.

Still, I have found some rewarding things about trying to con my daughter into sleeping. She likes to be spoken to when she's drifting off, so here's a video of that process as daddy tries to bring out her inner "Sweet Girl" (instead of The Monster).

We spent some time interviewing a prospective babysitter. We may have found a winner but I am still struggling with some conflicting information that we've received on the tax implications. At this point, we're literally looking at 4 hours per week to start - from what I gather, if we're spending more than $1600 per year on her, we need to do withholding and set up an employer ID number with the IRS. But others have assured us that if it's less than 10 hours per week, you don't need to do withholding - although I cannot find a single reputable source to back that up. And, of course, we need to make sure that the prospective nanny is legal. So, there's another research project for daddy.

We've also had our first encounter with constipation. We haven't had any poo sightings since Friday. Baby 411 assures us that this is not abnormal, but you can tell that she's really trying to conduct some business. The recommended solution? According to Baby 411, it's to insert the rectal thermometer - what the book describes as "the most dispensed phone advice by any pediatrician's office."

Hannah informed me that I would get to do the honors on this one. Now, in thinking through the logistics of this, I would rather cut off my finger than stick something up my daughter's rectum. But, after seeing her little face after she tried to have #2 without success this morning, I decided to take action. And actually, it went more smoothly than I thought. While we were there, we also took the time to assure ourselves that her temperature is normal (99.5 - normal for an infant).

And, while Pooh Watch is still ongoing, she doesn't appear too traumatized by the experience.

(p.s. Oh yeah, this technique worked big time!)