The Trixie Update

As a general rule, Trixie smells nice — it’s that wonderful “baby” smell that women are always swooning over. I smell her all the time. I’ll snort invisible lines across her stomach to get as much smell in as possible. The back of her neck at the hairline also smells good; especially because her hair is so downy that it tickles the nose. However, on the opposite side, on the front of her neck, it smells like something crawled up under her chin and died. This is not an exaggeration, but rather the result of all the milk that dribbles down her chin and sours, creating a sticky little home for all sorts of pungent microorganisms. I’m really not kidding — it’s so rotten it can make you gag. We’ve now instituted a “Catch the Drips” program that is yielding good results so far. That and washing the film away every once and a while.

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We’d like to invite our readers to suggest potential Halloween costumes for Trixie. Remember, we like original ideas; we don’t want Trixie to have the same costume as that baby down the street. Leave your suggestions in a comment, and we’ll turn the best ideas into a poll.

*UPDATE: I want people to know that the costume doesn’t necessarily have to stop at Trixie. Because she can’t walk yet, or even crawl, we will be carrying her one way or another.

For example, she now faces forward when strapped to my chest, so one costume possibility could be for Trixie to go as a squirrel coming out of a hole in a tree, with me dressed as the tree. Similarly, I had an idea to dress up her car carrier with all its harnesses as a space capsule and she could be Valentina Tereshkova, but the carrier is way too heavy to carry around the whole night.

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Just wanted to let our loyal readers know that there’s a major milk story gathering on the horizon. We’re talking multi-part articles, photos, and a new permanent homepage addition: the dynamic, database-driven “Bottle Log.” Jennifer is even going to dust off her writer’s cap to give her unique perspective. Be sure and join us next week (hopefully, but no promises) for The Trixie Update Special Presentation of “Feeding Trixie: a History of Milk.”

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Trixie rolled over from her stomach to her back last Thursday for the first time. It’s funny to watch. I would have thought that rolling over is a function of arm control and leverage. It’s actually a result of neck strength. She has been able to lift her head and look around during tummy-time for a while. Now, however, she’s able to crane her heavy little melon far enough to the side that her center of gravity shifts and her body tumbles after her head. Basically, wherever her head goes, her body follows.

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This week is Jennifer’s first week on call and it hasn’t been a lot of fun. Moving from NYC with the MTA, and taking advantage of Chapel Hill’s excellent public transportation, we are a one-car family. So when Jennifer gets a page in the middle of the night and has to go to hospital, I need to drive her and drop her off IF I want to have the car the following day. Trixie also has to come along because apparently you can’t leave a baby at home.

So we all took a trip to the hospital at 2:30 in the morning last night to drop off Jennifer, and then Trixie wouldn’t go back to sleep. I could go into the details, but what’s the point? It’s screaming, crying, wide-awake restlessness and then more of the same. Of course, Jennifer isn’t getting any sleep at the hospital either, and so we all stumble around the apartment in a mental haze. That’s why posting to the site has been light this week, and it’s probably going to be like that for a while. But, hey, there’s always the Showerometer.

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In addition to the shots received last Thursday, Trixie got weighed at the doctor’s office. The new numbers confirm Jennifer’s assertion that babies do not maintain geometric growth beyond the first 4-6 weeks. In fact, Trixie gained less than two pounds in her second month, throwing off my previous one-year estimate of 779 lbs. But now, taking into account an extra month of data, I feel confident to release a new one-year weight extrapolation of 67 lbs. This estimate is still, of course, much too high, and her rate of growth will hopefully decrease in the coming months, or we can look forward to celebrating Trixie’s 1st birthday with a big fat case of diabetes. At any rate she currently weighs in at 10lbs 13oz. and is 23 1/4″ long, placing her above the 50th percentile for her age group.

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Now, I’m not a doctor, so I’m not exactly sure what the string of letters in the title actually stands for, but it is what Trixie got at the doctor’s office today. It was my understanding she was going to get “a” shot — turned out it was four. I was only off by 300%. Fortunately, it was over pretty quickly. She was tag-teamed by two nurses who synchronized needles in each thigh at the same time, twice. Traumatic as it was, she recovered relatively quickly and is now very excited about her new Band-Aids.

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Two new site developments:
The Showerometer: Rhymes with barometer. This is a small indicator at the top of the home page that displays the current shower situation. What is this good for? Well, it’s mainly for Jennifer’s benefit, so she can get a feel for how things are going at home. Otherwise, it could be cynically described as a Feel-sorry-for-ben-o-meter.

[Editor’s Note: The Showerometer was discontinued after Trixie started taking naps of a predictable length, and I was able to get a shower on a regular basis.]

Shutterfly.com: Now available. Order high-quality photos of your favorite Trixie Picture of the Day and have them delivered to your door. Prices are as follows. The lower price is available with a Pre-Paid Print Plan:

I’ve ordered prints from Shutterfly before and I’m happy with the quality. Their site is pretty good at explaining how to order; you just follow the prompts - the process will walk you through the steps.

click here for TPOD August 2003
click here for TPOD September 2003

The permanent link to the Shutterfly photos can be found on the TPOD monthly archive page (for example: September 2003) which you get to from the bottom on the TPOD home page.

[Editor’s Note: I have discontinued the shutterfly experiment. Most people seemed happy enough printing straight from their browser.]

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