The Trixie Update

Trixie has been officially recognized by the Federal government. Let’s just hope Social Security is still solvent in 70 years.

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As previously reported in the Picture of the Day, we had a last-minute inspiration to dress Trixie up as a “Monster B-Movie Poster.” A giant radioactive Trixie looms over the city, demolishing buildings as the Army tries to take her down.

We didn’t go trick-or-treating this year. She’s too young to eat anything, and I feel that I’m at the age and position in my life where if I want some candy, I can just go to store rather than stumble around the neighborhood in the dark begging from door to door. However, we did get to showcase the Atomic Baby for friends at a fun costume party.

Here are a few more pictures of the costume, including detail shots of the Army desperately trying to hold the line:

“Attack of the Atomic Baby!”

From left: Trixie prepares to level the city, Trixie stomping unfortunate soldiers into the ground.

Clockwise from top left: Bazookas deployed, storming the perimeter, waiting for the threat to emerge from behind the cloud of dust and smoke, and sniper taking aim.

As with any project, I wish there had been a little more time to totally finish the details. There really needs to be a couple of tanks or a howitzer, and maybe some crushed cars. If she had been a little older, I would have made a city bus that she could shake around like a rattle. Still, it was fun to make and Trixie liked towering over everything, so we consider it a pretty good Halloween.

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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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Trixie has hit a couple of milestones that I haven’t had a chance to mention. She smiles now. This has been in development for about two weeks.

Of course, babies can smile almost from day one, but that’s an involuntary reflex. Usually they are asleep and they are doing something in their pants. I’m talking about a social smile. That is, she will look at one of us and in response to us looking back, she gives a huge smile. (I’ll try to get a picture up soon.)

This is fun because it’s nice to get feedback. And she’s a very happy baby when she’s not screaming. Additionally, it’s a milestone of social behavior, and if she wasn’t doing it yet we would have to take her back and get another one.

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Boy howdy, it’s been a rough day. Trixie won’t stop screaming. Hungry? No. Wet? No. Gassy? No. Exhausted? I would think so, but no, she still has plenty of energy available for more screaming. Today also marks a pitiful milestone: Trixie now appears to have functioning tear ducts, and her weepy eyes have been welling up with tears all morning.

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Trixie is slowly gaining control of her neck muscles. She is now able to hold her head up in selective situations. Of course, her muscle control isn’t very refined. She’ll hold her head up for a few seconds as if it were balancing on top of, instead of connected to her body, and then she’ll bob around, lurching wildly from side to side. Occasionally within these erratic movements she’ll stumble across a fluid sequence, dodging and jabbing in an imaginary boxing match.

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Today is the first day that Trixie and I are on our own - at least during business hours. I am officially a stay-at-home dad. My main job responsibility is to keep Trixie alive. If there’s extra time then I can read to her and play with her, and maybe get a shower. But the primary goal is to make sure that she is healthy and still breathing when Jennifer walks through the door.

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No, I don’t mean bourbon — that will come later. Except we’ll call it “cough medicine” and give it to her at night. Today we’re talking about Hepatitis B. We thought we had heard her scream before, but she showed us.

* Trixie actually received her first Hep B in the hospital. Today was her first outpatient vaccination.

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Trixie has started down the road to drool-dom. It’s funny because there are really a lot of things that babies can’t do at first — things that seem so fundamental, that it’s surprising to discover they are without the ability. Drooling and crying fall in this category. By crying I mean the ability to produce tears, not the ability to scream, which Trixie has completely mastered. Incidentally, she should begin producing tears soon. Droolwise, she’s begun to make cute little spit bubbles with an occasional rogue stream. Unfortunately, it is my understanding that soon she will be secreting fluid like one of the xenomorphs from “Aliens.”

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You turn your back for two seconds during a diaper change and suddenly there’s urine everywhere. Trixie was completely covered in it. I was just about to take shower so we decided to take her in with me. She didn’t flinch. Logistically it’s easier to rinse her off in the shower than the whole baby bath thing, but I suspect she’s going to get pretty slippery if soap were introduced into the mix so this probably isn’t the ideal solution. At least we are getting her used to water.

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