Elimination Communication

So about that diaper free thing. Before the spawnlet made her appearance I was curious but skeptical. Especially since I don't know anyone doing it, and the most vocal advocates of the method in my world don't live with children. We are sort of trying it. Well, more than trying really, we only go through maybe 4-5 diapers a day now, and she mostly refuses to poop in a diaper anymore. She will instead fuss until someone takes her to the bathroom (like at the library playgroup this morning). I'd say we catch 80-90% of poops. I'm not overly worried about pees - if I catch them, great, and I feel smug about getting to put a clean diaper back on her, but if I don't I just change her. She usually stays dry for most or all of the night, which is kind of cool. She is however in diapers full-time these days, at least partly because she's so damn cold all the time and it's an easy layer. But also because I refuse to get stressed out about baby poo, and cleaning up any more than strictly necessary. She does still get skid marks occasionally, and I am not totally confident about how very very liquid things are. That shit stains. When it warms up, (and certainly when she starts food and things firm up) I imagine we'll get more brave about it, but for now I just undress her to take her to the bathroom. One of the things I love about it is how into the whole scene LittleE is. Every morning he comes over to the potty with her and helps her by "making the sounds." He is also reasonably attentive to her moods, and will occasionally suggest that she maybe needs to go. which I think can only help in the learning of his own body signals, which has not been such a straightforward process. (anyone know when you can call it encopresis? any tips?)

Good god. A whole post about baby poo. I'm so sorry. /shakes head slowly/ Feel free to call, or visit, or ask me to do some of your work. That is all.

Siblings

After LittleM was born, she was taken up to the nicu. After I came to and pressed the morphine button 41 times, they wheeled me by her box on my way to my own room on the floor. My very first thought was "shit, I guess that one's mine . . . because she looks just like her brother." Lots of other folks have made similar observations, but it wasn't until I saw these two photos (of them, each at 5 days old) on my MIL's fridge that I realised that I wasn't imagining it.




Her face is longer, her skin is darker, and she has this wary look which I interpret as "any more tubes, needles or boxes and I will smite you all"

But it's otherwise rather eerie right?

And makes for some more queer family brain food around here. We live in a small college town, and people are generally Very Accepting of us as a cute lesbian family. Acquaintances routinely inquire if the kids have the same. . . er, father? dad? sperm donor? and when we nod they invariably grin and say "oh how nice for them!" I'm never sure what to say to that. Is it nice because they share 25% of their genes? As if that makes for guaranteed good relationships. Is it because they think dealing with a single source of paternal genes is really great? Although we think that the Spuncle is pretty fabulous, random person in the park doesn't know him from a frozen dude from Georgia, so I'm not sure why it's so "nice." However, I am both not very creative, and not very funny - so I usually don't have any smart-ass answers on hand for such encounters. I usually just keep with the smiling and nodding.

In some ways, the fact that these kids look alike reinforces our little unit of 4 as somehow more legitimate. And by that I mean closer to the ideal het nuclear family. The children are obviously related and have the same surname. We get praise for this.

At the same time, the fact that these kids look alike makes our differences more explicit. They were not created from the physical union of me and my female lover. Ahem. Their physical resemblance is an announcement that our unit did or does involve more than the 4 of us, and does not fit neatly into the straight family model with the quick switcheroo of another mom for the dad.

i think that second part is more obvious to us than to strangers. Because there are now two, (and one is still little enough that we spend most of the day staring at her in the googley-eyed way folks stare at babies) their relatedness makes our queerness more present. And Queer is a nice break from feeling like a milk factory filled with dino-lore.



Also, it is fortunate that the second kid comes second. Cuz now I have the baby thing a bit more practiced, which is good, since there is an almost 4-year-old to corral as well. And I'm less anxious (most of the time) about breaking the baby, so I let him go near her. Seen above: either baby being eaten by one of several predatory prehistoric marine arthropods or baby being covered with kisses by her big brother so that "she will not be eaten up by any of the extant animals that are still living into their tummies Mum-um-um-um, because animals and monsters don't like to eat kisses"