The Trixie Update

Currently, the absolutely worst part about owning a baby is the feedings. Not the breast or bottle feedings — there’s nothing too tricky about that after the first couple of weeks. I’m talking about the food feedings. The three-times-a-day, get-that-the-hell-away-from-my-mouth, what-makes-you-think-I-need-to-eat, applesauce explosion, extravaganza. Please note that in the prior sentence, the word applesauce may be replaced with yogurt or blueberries or carrots. You know, just whatever happens to stain the worst on any given day depending on what you’re wearing.

For those that don’t have kids, you might ask, “Why is it so hard to feed a baby?” Well, have you ever tried to get a cat to swallow medicine? No? Don’t have cats? OK, have you ever tried to shovel a spoonful of food in the mouth of a stranger on a bus? Yeah, that’s it. Now you’re with me.

From Trixie’s perspective I can only imagine that she thinks I’m trying to poison her. The second I strap her into the highchair, she starts hollering and getting revved up. It doesn’t matter whether its the sweetest tasting baby carrots or big bowl of spicy chili*. She starts shaking her head back-and-forth “NO” before I can get the spoon anywhere close to her mouth.

Her behavior has lead us to an evolutionary struggle. I’m constantly creating new games, distractions and outright tricks and she’s developing resistance to my attacks after only a few bites.

In general, games don’t work so well. She doesn’t go for the “here comes the airplane” thing. Sometimes we’ll play the game where she throws something on the floor and laughs, laughs, laughs. This is good because it’s pretty easy to stick food in there when she’s cackling. But she’s not always in such a hilarious mood.

Tricks have the shortest life. My favorite was when I would throw a couple of Cheerios on the tray. She would meticulously pinch one and bring it toward her open mouth. In that split second I could shove a spoonful of peas in there. Poor kid. It was such a confusing experience. This deception would only work about two times before she would stop picking up Cheerios at all and just sit there with her mouth sealed shut glaring at me.

Distractions seem to be the way to go. I’ve cycled through every utensil in the kitchen drawer. Ice cream scoop, bottle opener, chop sticks, spatulas and even the jigger. Each of these is good for at least a half-dozen spoonfuls. Recently I discovered the holy grail of mealtime distractions: ice. She gapes openmouthed at the ice as if it were the Hope diamond — for like ten minutes. By simply holding an ice-cube in my hand while letting her paw at it, I can get her to eat an entire jar of baby food. It’s pretty amazing.

Of course, I doubt this will work forever. All ice melts. But when the time comes, I’ve got a back-up plan - something that in Trixie’s eyes is even more sacred and sought after than a brilliant, glinting chuck of ice. Its mellifluous jingling is a Siren song. That’s right, it’s the car keys.

* We don’t feed the baby chili.

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Or You’re Going to Call Your Baby What? (Part 2)

I don’t recall exactly how we were drawn to Beatrix. Part of it was because it’s an older name. According to the Social Security Administration’s Popular Baby Names database, Beatrice (and variations thereof) had decreased in popularity from the top 40’s in the first decades of the 20th century to #546 in the 1990’s. And as such, it seemed like a good name that has simply been out of fashion for about seven decades.

The only problem was everyone’s reaction to the name: “You know [pause], it sounds like a Vegas hooker,” “You know, uhhh, it sounds like an aging truck-stop waitress” and “I knew a tranny named Trixie.” We desperately tried to find out if there were any positive associations out there. Doesn’t anyone name their daughter Beatrix? Isn’t Trixie a cute name for a spunky, little girl skipping around? Won’t Bea make a cool nickname in high school? A google search wasn’t very helpful. There were plenty of pet ferrets, lizards and a sheep dog named Trixie, but no cute little babies — only wrinkly, raspy-voiced, little babies that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and diesel fumes.

We turned to the parent message forums next. We had to find out if we were condemning our daughter to years of ribbing. Now, nothing against these message boards, but they can be pretty predictable and repetitive as each new wave of soon-to-be parents logs on and posts something along the lines of:

Then tons of people write in about how both variations are truly beautiful and it’s a great name - a beautiful name - and congratulations!

And so, searching for validation, we took our turn at the wheel and declared our intention to use the name Beatrix. The reaction was less than encouraging. We got a lot of those Vegas/waitress reactions listed above as well as “it sounds like an old fat lady.” I was really surprised at such a cold reaction. I was like, what the hell, it’s a perfectly nice name, it’s just a little less popular. I needed to see if there was a baseline for determining truly bad baby names. I posted that we were considering a few unorthodox ones for our new daughter. The reaction was furious:

Yes, I was kidding, but I had to see what would spark true outrage over a baby name. It didn’t really solve anything, but it made us realize that we should just find a name that works for us and not everybody else. (But, to be totally honest, I really do like the name Deimos. And Jennifer is still a fan of Phosphor.)

In the end, Beatrix won us over. I like it from a typographical perspective and we decided that Trixie wouldn’t be that out of place. Old-fashioned names are definitely making a comeback. Plus, people will start to remap their associations. Pretty soon, the message boards will be buzzing with “Trixie? That’s an adorable name! My drag queen friend just named his kid that!”

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Or You’re Going to Call Your Baby What? (Part 1)

About this time last year, we started to get serious about the whole baby name thing. We had a great list for boys, but let’s face it, Jenn was not going to let me name our daughter Strong-O. So we started down the path that all expectant parents eventually wander onto — the one that leads to that section of the book store titled “Baby Names.” It’s a horribly stupid section where books truly can be judged by their cover. 90,001 Baby Names always trumps 40,000 Baby Names that Work For You! And who would waste their time with The Absolute Best 1,000 Names for Your Baby? Only those that can’t count. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll admit that we bought a baby name book — but not one with a numeric title.)

You also have to be careful not to hang out there too long because all the quiet murmuring will drive you crazy. Not at first, but eventually you will wake up screaming, the faint whispers of “Jacob? no… Olivia? no… Ryan? no… Madison? no… Genevieve?… Tatum?… Deandre?… Deandre?… Deandre?…” still echoing in your head.

We were driven by one overriding principle - not another Jennifer. That is to say, not another name that occurred with the same frequency as Jennifer did for babies born back in the 70’s. Our guide was the Social Security Administration - specifically the Popular Baby Names database that aggregates the top 1000 most frequently occurring names for every decade of this past century. (Since 1990, you can see the breakdown for each year.)

If you visit Most Popular Names of the 1970’s, you’ll see that smack at the top of the list is Jennifer. It was the most popular name of the whole decade, and that explains why there were always between 3 and 25 Jennifers in every class from Kindergarten to High School. Jenn didn’t want our daughter to have to go through that sort of identity dilution. I was more fortunate; Benjamin was only the 42nd most popular.

The names that we were initially drawn to were somewhat disappointingly at the top of the 2002 list. In retrospect, it isn’t that surprising; those names probably seeped into our heads because they were popular. At any rate, we tried to delve a little deeper with the ultimate goal of striking a balance between an unique name and an albatross.

As we discovered, it’s difficult to decide on a name in a vacuum. It’s even worse to start asking other people.

Coming tomorrow: Well, then how about…

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The advertising on the box says to use Pedialyte instead of sports drinks or juices to replace lost fluids in sick children. I’m surprised this line of thinking hasn’t been picked up outside of the dehydrated baby market. Pedialyte should be the ultimate underground sports drink. There could be a cult of Pedialyte junkies tearing up the court in pick-up games across the country. It could be kind of like that pacifier fad back in the 90’s.

Anyway, Trixie staring crying about 10:30 last night. Jenn went to comfort her but came out holding a wet blanket. We thought maybe her diaper had leaked. We go back in, turn on the lights, and see that she had thrown up everywhere. Food was splattered on the wall, the floor, the sheets, Frank, the bear, her clothes. It almost seemed that maybe she started throwing up in the standing position and then ran around the crib a few times. To use an art metaphor, it was Pollack in action, minus the drinking and cigarettes.

This was the first time Trixie had thrown up in maybe 7-8 months. We were a little concerned, but it looked like she had just eaten too much during the day. Otherwise, sometimes babies get a little stomach virus. It’s normal, although not particularly comforting at 11:00 at night.

We gave her a bath to get all the throw up off, got her some fresh, clean clothes and took her to our bed since her stuff was all in the washer. Three minutes later, she throws up again. Sheets, pillows, mattress cover, herself and Jennifer - all covered in it. Jenn gave her another bath (actually the third for the day, because we gave her one before bedtime) while I stripped the bed and tried to figure out who gets to sleep where.

We dried her off once again, did the fresh clothes thing (for both Jenn and Trixie) and decided that she needed to drink some fluids. We did haven’t any clear juices in the house so I had to make a trip to the grocery store. While Jenn was holding Trixie and looking for Pedialyte coupons, Trixie threw up again, completely covering both of them. (Somewhat unfairly, I didn’t get thrown up on the entire night.) Jennifer and Trixie had to take one last bath (the 4th) while I ran to the store.

Triumphant in procuring white grape juice and Pedialyte, we tried to get Trixie to drink some. No dice. I don’t really blame her. The stuff is insanely sweet, maybe a little like refined and concentrated Red Bull. We kept cutting it with water to see if she would drink some until we had worked our way down to 1 part Pedialyte to 1000 parts water. At this point we just her a couple of ice cubes in washcloth, which she greedily sucked and put her off to bed.

Everything seems fine this morning. She has some sleep to catch up on but is drinking plenty, and is happy.

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Trixie is going apeshit bonkers. She and I have been on our own for the last 36 hours because Jenn is at a 2-day conference. It’s terrible. Six o’clock rolls around and there’s no hand-off. I don’t know who’s been crying and screaming more, Trixie or me.

Jenn is coming home tomorrow, but not until late, so there’s one more full day to go. In the meantime, Trixie has been tramping around the apartment in a weepy mess, there are Cheerios everywhere and I’m still discovering the sticky range of this afternoon’s applesauce bomb.

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Trixie has finished her medicine, and she has no problem showing us what she thought of it.

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Turns out that Trixie is sick. I took her in for an unscheduled doctor visit yesterday because her left eye had been very teary for the previous 12 hours. She was perfectly happy, but pitiful to look at. Her one eye was constantly welling with tears to the point that there was a steady stream running down her face. The diagnosis? She had caught a little bit of our cold and it had clogged the tiny, tiny baby ducts that drain the everyday tears that lubricate her eyes. With nowhere to drain, the tears were overflowing, leaving Trixie looking like she had just attended a marathon funeral. There’s no need to treat it unless the area gets swollen (i.e. infected), so we’ll just keep an eye on it.

However, it turns out that she does have an ear infection, and so Trixie’s getting her first prescription. Considering that the liquid Amoxicillin comes in a great bubble-gum flavor, you would think that Trixie would eat the stuff up. But no, trying to squirt the oral syringe in her mouth is more difficult than when I’ve had to do the same thing to a cat - even though babies don’t have claws. In a matter of seconds this morning’s dose splattered all over her as the pink liquid erupted, gurgled and bubbled out of her mouth like a grumpy volcano. Only 18 doses to go.

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Apparently if we get sick, no new stories get posted to Trixie Update. It’s one of the downsides to not having an intern. We’ve both been sick this past week. I’ve been fighting a losing battle against a cold and Jennifer got hit with a double whammy of a cold plus mastitis (or maybe mastitis plus cold - we’re not sure which came first).

Taking care of Trixie is much more complicated when you’re trying not to sneeze, cough or breathe on her. You also have to work to keep her hands out of your mouth, nose and eyes. We’re not even totally sure that these measures have paid off — Trixie has had a dry cough all week, although no other symptoms. But even if she does get sick, I think we can still count ourselves lucky since Trixie’s been in perfect health up to this point.

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Conventional wisdom states that babies can’t be toilet-trained until they are at least 2 years old. The reasons given for this range from the psychological to the physiological, with most agreeing that the necessary reflexes and muscle control take that long to develop. This is total crap! Trixie undertakes pooping with unbelievable precision. Since we starting giving her solid food, she so far refuses to do it while she’s wearing a diaper. Without fail, she decides that the best time to take a poop is right after I’ve taken off her diaper.

I’m torn on whether this is a convenient behavior. So far it has meant we haven’t been caught off-guard when traveling around town. But on the homefront it makes for an unbelievably trying — though predictable — routine. First, buck naked from the waist down, she has to grab her feet and pull them back as far as she can — if possible into her mouth. Second, secure in the knowledge that she is, in fact, naked, she gets right to work.

After throwing down an open diaper, I stand by and watch the horror of it all. There are so many terribly vivid metaphors. Some days I imagine a Play-Doh Fun Factory. Other times it’s a soft-serve ice cream machine. Less abstractly, it reminds me of catching an unlucky glance at one of those yippy dogs out in the park doing their thing. The latest challenge is the unfortunate discovery that my gag reflex almost isn’t strong enough for the job. The smell a couple of days ago brought me within a hair’s breadth of actually throwing up. This is bad because nobody wants to throw up on their baby.

Why subject myself to this? Why not quickly seal up the diaper and run when my spider-sense starts tingling? Because it’s actually easier to clean up if it doesn’t get smushed all around the diaper. Even a light poopy diaper can necessitate a bath if it gets smeared around too much, and that’s 10 times the work. So, this is the best we can hope for under the circumstances. More importantly, I’m convinced that she knows exactly what she’s doing. Toilet-training starts tomorrow.

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Only a taste test can tell for sure. Trixie’s third food is the most visually compelling so far. It also has quite a peculiar viscosity: sort of frothy but also gloppy and slimy. Shoveling the green, mucky paste into her gaping mouth is hilarious. The fact that she loves it and leans forward with an open mouth is even better.

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