The poopy baby

As you may have gathered from my earlier posts, Teddy is a pretty easy baby, especially when compared to his sister at the same age (or now!) Of course, this impression partly arises due to our experience with babies since we don't jump at every squawk that he makes. But objectively, he doesn't squawk very much. Instead, he either eats and sleeps (napping and snacking, or nacking and snapping, we call it) or he enjoys lots of the contemplative quiet time that we have always read about in the books, but never experienced with his sister. For example, one book that we have describes the five S's which involve swaddling, side, shushing, swinging, and sucking to calm a fussy kid. We tried all of these tricks with Margaret with varying degrees of success. Swaddling worked ok - she was much calmer when we could keep her wrapped up so that she didn't bonk herself in the head. Swinging was key - for months, Margaret's longest episodes of sleep involved naps in the swing. And, given her continued fondness for the nuk-nuk, sucking has also been a winner. But with Teddy, we haven't had to employ ANY of those techniques. Nor have we had to walk him around the block to quiet him down (although he does nap well in the Baby Bjorn carrier.) The only thing that we've had to do with him is to put him to bed in his car seat rather than his crib. But, frankly, I don't care where he sleeps as long as he sleeps. And sleeping in the car seat is much more convenient for travelling since we're already bringing his bed along with us.

However, the key dimension in which he "outperforms" his sister is his gastrointestinal performance. He's one farty, poopy baby. I don't remember poopy diapers as a signature event of Margaret's first few months, but that, along with his pleasant demeanor, will be a primary memory that I'll retain for Teddy. This poopiness involves two things: A) frequent poopy diapers and B) LOUD announcement of their arrival. We recognized this tendency early on: A few pooplosions (as we've started to call them) that startle you from across the room really get your attention. The Philadelphia relatives tell stories about how Teddy's cousin, Andrew, was so loudly effusive that they had to move him out of the room so that they could sleep. But when we were up there last weekend, they agreed that Teddy could give Andrew a run for his money. For example, Teddy's lying on my chest while I'm lying on the couch reading a book. "Ppthhh." "Did you hear that one Joe?" "Yep." Then five minutes or so later: "Pppthhhhh." "Was that you or him?" "Him. That's my boy!"

Another example: Tonight I was changing Teddy's diaper before sending him down with Abby to watch "Project Runway." Now, I don't change many of his diapers. Partly this is because I'm not with him as much as Abby so I don't have to opportunity to do so, but it's also because I've changed lots of really messy diapers care of Margaret during the last month when Abby hasn't been able to pick up Margaret. I figure that kind of balances out.

Anyway, I was feeling magnanimous so I plopped Teddy down in his bed, pried off a (poopy) diaper, and tightened up a new one. As I picked him up and started to carry him out of the room, he got a very focused expression on his face. Now, generally his expressions are very unfocused at this point, with random looking around and scrunched up faces. So I thought that he may be registering my presence. "Do you see me?," I asked. "Will you smile for Papa?" He responded with a look of deep concentration followed by "Pppthhhhh." Needless to say, I had to change him again.

When I told Abby about his quick repeat performance of the poopy diaper, she said "Yeah, he does that a lot."