Yellow Poop and Other Reasons Why Life is Good

Given the horribly depressing mood of Thursday’s post I thought I should write a little something to perk things up around here. List format seems best as I’ve got a million and one things to do this morning.

1. I opened my email yesterday to find an amazingly supportive message from my official ‘Mommy Friend’. It made me feel like someone understood, like somebody cared and invariably made me feel like a better mother. Plus it made me laugh out loud. If you have a baby but don’t have a ‘Mommy Friend’ you should go find yourself one immediately. She won’t be as great as mine of course but we can’t all be so lucky.

2. I bit the bullet and started Gaia on soy formula yesterday to see if it made a difference to her demeanour, skin and poop (I’m a mama and an excessive portion of my mind space revolves around baby poop... deal with it). I know they say it can take up to two weeks to notice a difference but she drank the first bottle without stopping, without fussing and without tensing her entire baby body for the first time during a feeding in almost two weeks. She eagerly consumed three more bottles in the late afternoon and evening, each followed with a dainty burp, some big smiles and quick cat-naps. When I went to take her diaper off for her bedtime bath it was filled with the most glorious baby poop I have ever seen. Not only was it the perfect soft consistency but it was... wait for it... YELLOW! Gaia officially had her first appropriately coloured baby poop. I almost kissed the dirty diaper I was so happy, but I settled for kissing Gaia instead. She acted nonchalant but I know she was excited too. I also feel it’s important to note that the reason I hadn’t noticed she’d pooped was that she didn’t clench up, stop breathing, turn purple and grunt while pooping, but rather hummed the little BM song I’ve heard from all the breastfed babies I know. I still have a nagging worry that the fact the formula is iron-fortified might be a problem but overall I feel the experiment has been a success. Did I mention I put her to bed at 10:00pm and she’s still sleeping? It’s almost 8:30am. Yeah.

3. I have amazing parents. I moved far away from home in my teens and while brief instances reminded me of this fact overall I think I grossly underestimated them. If they weren’t so fantastic there is absolutely no way I could be doing this all on my own. Plus they’ve been divorced for almost ten years and when I came home from running errands yesterday they we’re tag teaming a screaming Gaia, trying to get her to sleep. This is the kind of civilised behaviour everyone should expect from two people who chose to have children together, even if they later chose not to share their lives. Unfortunately I know lots of people who aren’t so lucky. Thank God for Grandparents. Especially Gaia’s.

4. In a few short hours Gaia and I will be boarding a plane to Vancouver. Not only is Vancouver my official ‘happy place’(the ocean, the mountains, the trees and the sky... oh my... not to mention the shopping) but it’s also jam-packed with some of my best friends in the world. I don’t care if it rains all summer... I love it there.

5. In just thirty-two hours I get to pick up my husband at the airport after one hundred and fifty-one days apart. Better still, he gets to hold his daughter for the first time. Words can’t express my excitement.