The Trixie Update

If you like baby blogs, then today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press is for you. They are running a story about blogging parents. It mentions a couple that TTU readers already know about, as well as a few new ones. Welcome to our new MN visitors. BTW, if you are a new visitor, I recommend the charts and graphs in Metrics. It’s one of the more interesting parts of the Trixie Update.

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Jennifer, you’ll be happy to know that I did get around to mixing cow’s milk into Trixie’s milk today at a 1:5 ratio. She drank it just fine and there are no signs of any negative reaction*. Who knows, maybe this time next week, no more pumping.

*Ok, well, there is a huge, blistering rash that developed all around her mouth and on her legs where the milk dripped a little, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions.

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As we see in today’s TPOD, I can buy Trixie’s happiness by simply letting her hold my wallet. Like that will last. What everyday, off-limits, purse or pocket item is your baby most desperate to get a hold of?

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We’ve all heard about couples who are having problems and then decide to have a baby in order to save the marriage.* I don’t personally know anyone who has done this, so I don’t know how prevalent it really is, or whether it’s just an overused “Law and Order” plot device, but boy, what a phenomenally bad idea.

Having a baby to save a marriage? That’s insane. Nothing has generated more stress or worn us down more in our five years of marriage than the constant game of trying to adapt to Trixie. Hear me out: I’m not saying that we have tons of fights. I’m saying that the baseline conditions make it easy for tons of fights to erupt if you aren’t careful and loving and respectful of each other. (And even that’s no guarantee.) By extension, I think that if we weren’t doing well as a couple and then decided to have a baby, we would fight 10x as much in the new, now-with-higher-stress, post-baby environment. (I’ll admit there’s also a lot of love to balance out the stress, but since that’s the conventional wisdom, I’m not going to address it here.)

There’s no real reason that I’m writing about this right now.* Nothing is going wrong or anything like that.* It’s just that the idea about saving the marriage popped in my head recently, and the more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed. I almost think that you could do the opposite and have a baby to save a divorce. I mean, if you’re thinking about getting a divorce, but you’re on the fence and can’t commit — have a baby. That will seal the deal.

*BTW, this isn’t about Jenn and me. We feel like we’re a pretty communicative, understanding couple. But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t subjected to the stresses inherent in taking care of a baby, or that I don’t regularly threaten to sneak out of the house and drive to Mexico.

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The father of Colum (of Celebrating Colum notoriety) and I went to high school together way back when. And when John and his family recently visited NC, it worked out for Colum and Trixie to meet each other for the first time.

(Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to capture the meeting because Trixie wasn’t being that cooperative, but thankfully John had his camera.)

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Trixie is messing up my metabolism. It’s a direct result of the new feeding schedule. We spend hours at the highchair now: breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner. And because you’re supposed to eat with your baby to reinforce the idea that eating is for everybody, I’ve been sitting down too. So I’ve gotten used to having all these tiny little meals spread throughout the day instead of just the big two (brunch and dinner) that I used to do. When it gets to be 4:00 in the afternoon, I can feel my blood sugar dropping, and I’m like, dammit, why is she still asleep? It’s time for vanilla wafers and apple juice.

Of course, this is messing up dinnertime as well. Jenn comes home starving, but I’m never that hungry for a big meal anymore. Plus, she gets upset because when I’m full, I’ve started pushing my peas around the plate and then throwing the whole thing on the floor in an exhausted fit.

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[UPDATE] As far as I know, everything is working again, including comments. However, if you find anything wrong anywhere on the site please leave a comment or email me so I can fix it: TTU@trixieupdate.com. Most importantly, the poll is working again too.
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