The Trixie Update

Trixie didn’t like my little plan to return her to the hospital. I’m not going to go into the details, but it was messy and it involved a load of laundry. The lesson here: don’t cross Trixie, payback is hell.

As it turns out, there was no need for her to resort to drastic measures because apparently I can’t take her back anyway. The hospital had no idea what I was talking about. They said Trixie didn’t come with a warranty and that there was no such thing as a redesigned Toddler Habitat. She really is ours. So it looks like the Trixie Update is back. But I guess it’s no real surprise — you know what they about old blogs: They never die, they just fade away… only to spring back to life as the owner gets another burst of inspiration.

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With a little less than 24 hours left on Trixie’s one-year warranty, we faced a difficult decision. Returning Trixie to the maternity ward might seem a blatant disregard for such an otherwise chipper and agreeable little girl, but the truth of the matter is that the data I’ve collected from her lately is muddy, unreliable and at times contradictory.

I’ve made the decision that the only way to recover from this information disaster is to make a clean break from the corrupt data and start over from scratch at a future time. We’re glad we got to spend the last sleepless year with Trixie, and we know that she’ll land on her feet. (Or at least on her hands and feet — since she’s still crawling about a third of the time.)

We also want to say thanks to everyone for visiting and sharing in our online sociological experiment. I understand the hospital has some web cameras set up in their newly redesigned, acrylic-walled Toddler Habitat, and once I get the web address, I’ll be sure and post it here in case anyone still wants to keep tabs. Once again, thanks to all our readers and regular baby pundits. We love you all! Good night!

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We’ve almost come full circle when it comes to breast milk. Jenn started to pump at 4 weeks because she had to go back to work. From those precious, few first ounces to the thousands and thousands that have added up over the past 11 months, Trixie owes her Mom a great big sloppy, milky thank you. And what better way to say thanks than to readily take to cow’s milk?

We started transitioning her to cow’s milk 2 weeks ago and she’s doing great. She drinks a 50/50 mix just fine, but we’re waiting to get the final word from the pediatrician before we turn off the tap. However, it’s already made a huge difference in the amount of work we have to do.

Back when Trixie was drinking 32-36 oz a day, Jenn used to pump 14-16 oz in the morning, and then 8-10 oz at lunch and dinner. Now that Trixie is eating lots more solid food, she’s only drinking 20-24 oz a day. Cut that in half with cow’s milk and Jenn only has to pump 3 oz a side in the morning and the evening. That’s a huge savings in time for her. It also means there’s far less dishwashing for me — not only because she’s not drinking as much, but also because she’s using sippy cups pretty well now and they are much easier to clean than bottles.

All and all, when it comes to eating and drinking, life isn’t too bad. Sure Trixie can still get fussy at mealtimes, and it did take Jenn three days to find that piece of cheese thrown from the highchair last Monday, but for the most part, Trixie enjoys eating and she’s getting better at it every day.

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As we approach the one-year mark it seems like a good time to ask this question of our readers. Are you visiting as knowing, experienced, parenting pros? Or maybe in anxious, expectant uncertainty? Or maybe you’re enjoying a childfree lifestyle. Go vote in the new poll. (Thanks to Schaff for the suggestion!)

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We’ve looked at Trixie’s sleep cycles a lot since we started collecting data at about 4 months, and things are definitely better now than they were back then. Basically, her overnight sleep patterns are pretty stable, and we’ve been successful at shifting her bedtime to an earlier hour (on most days.)

Her daytime nap schedule is still surprisingly irregular. On the positive side, her many daily catnaps have slowly consolidated into only two naps a day. But unfortunately, despite our best efforts, those daytime naps can vary wildly from day to day depending on her mood. It’s something we’re still working on.

For me, displaying 8 months worth of sleep data is an interesting challenge. The information is always available to anyone in the Sleep Log, but the full chart takes up almost a dozen screens on my browser. It’s good for looking at small ranges of time — not the big picture. Fortunately we can compress the data in such a way that makes it easier to look at patterns. Here are a couple of charts that cover the last eight months:

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Back in September of 2003, as we changed Trixie’s 500th diaper, we took the opportunity to estimate how many total diapers would be changed as the one year mark rolled around. I’m happy to report that we were able to hold our diaper usage fairly close to the best-case projection at the time. I expect us to have changed 2,472 diapers by the time Trixie’s birthday rolls around 10pm Saturday night. This is only a couple dozen diapers more than 2,448, which was based on the seemingly unreachable goal (during those dark diapering days) of maintaining an average of 6 diapers a day. In short, a year of diapering turned out to somewhat easier than I expected.

The other issue related to diapering is Trixie’s introduction to the potty last month. I haven’t given many updates about potty training, mostly because it’s wildly unpredictable, the results mixed and I haven’t pursued it diligently. We initially just wanted Trixie to get familiar with the idea of sitting down in the bathroom, but she surprised us by actually using the potty for a couple of days in a row. She then surprised us further by using the bathroom floor for a couple of days in a row, which lead to us giving up for a while.

I decided to get back on the horse this week. To my initial disappointment, she didn’t do anything in her potty. But then she did walk over to the real toilet, unroll about 20 feet of toilet paper and pee all over the floor while pounding on the seat. Is this progress? I’m not sure. We have all the ingredients of a successful bathroom visit — the toilet, the toilet paper and the peeing — but the way they were all mixed together, you can’t help but think that something went horribly wrong.

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1) TPOD code: I’ve gotten a couple of emails lately concerning the code that runs the Trixie Picture of the Day. The TPOD is a regular Movable Type blog that has been enhanced with php scripts. Unfortunately, because of the sloppy way I built it, the php, and the way it integrates into MT, is undocumented and confusing. I don’t have time to clean it up and document it, but if any of our readers is interested in that job, and can make a tutorial that explains how it works, then I’ll be happy to send that person the files. When it’s done, I’ll post the scripts here for free and everyone can set up their own picture of the day system.

UPDATE [Jan. 15, 2005] A generous reader has documented the TPOD Movable Type templates and PHP scripts. The code and documentation is available as is. I’m unable to help install, explain, fix or answer questions about it because the Trixie Tracker software is my current priority. I apologize in advance, but if you know a little about MT and PHP, you should be OK.

Download the TPOD MT/PHP files: sit format (16k), zip format (16k)

UPDATE [Aug. 18, 2005] Here’s the One Year Ago Today code. You’ll have to plug it into the code above.

Also, here’s the script I use to calculate Trixie’s age on the home page (written by someone much better at date calculations than me.)

2) Trixie Tracker: I am pouring every free minute into its development. I still can’t set a beta release date, but we’re close. I just need more time to pull it together.

3) Hiatus: I’ve got to take a break from the Trixie Update. See #2. We’ll be back Monday the 26th, in time for me to document taking Trixie back to the hospital. (Her one-year warranty is almost up.)

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During baths, Trixie is obsessed with the bar of soap. We still wash her with Johnson’s Baby Wash, but the Ivory sometimes floats around as a distraction. She can’t get enough of it: it floats, it sinks, it’s slippery, it makes bubbles. What more could you ask for? Maybe a better taste. She screamed bloody murder after this incident — but only for a minute or two. I’m waiting for the next bath to see if she learned anything from her taste test.

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Trixie is going through another round of teething. I’ve never heard anything so horrible as the screaming that lasted almost two hours last night. We tried teething gel, ice, Tylenol, teethers and icy washcloths — as well as all the other sorts of holding, hugging and whispering you do to comfort a child. Nothing would ease the pain from the puffy, inflamed swelling in her upper gums caused by the two new front teeth now translucently visible below the bulging surface.

In the end, she exhausted herself from the uncontrollable, terrified anguish. She finally collapsed, shuddering and still sobbing, into the fetal position, asleep. Today, the teeth have still not broken through, but you would never know from Trixie, who is happy as a fully-toothed baby.

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Thanks to an email suggestion from a reader who wanted to stay above the frothy milk fray, I just went out and got some antibiotic and steroid-free whole milk. (TTU locals: It’s the Maple View Farm brand that comes in the glass bottles at your grocery store.) I had a glass and I was surprised to find that it tastes substantially better than the regular milk I usually drink. Who knew?

Anyway, I have never given that much thought to store bought milk until now, but it seems a lot of our readers have. Let’s see what you guys are buying: choose your poison in the new poll. (If I missed a type of store bought milk, let me know and I’ll add it to the poll.)

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