Week Two

Ok, it's more like week two and three-quarters. But Harper just had her two-week appointment on Friday, and it was confirmed that she's been gaining weight like a champ. In two weeks she gained two pounds and grew one inch. She's now about 8 lbs and 20 3/4 inches. I was pretty sure her cheeks were getting much chubbier, but now we have official confirmation. I guess that's what happens when you eat every two hours! Here's some highlights of the last week:

• I took Harper to a breastfeeding support group session last week. It was a free service offered by the hospital were she was born, and I thought it would be worth the trip if we could get a few tips and some confirmation that we were doing things right. We did get some tips and the confirmation we were looking for, but I was also completely weirded out by the other women in the group. They take breastfeeding incredibly seriously. They've been coming to that group every week for months. They change their babies when they arrive to make sure they have a fresh diaper, then they tare the scale with a diaper and weigh their babies before feeding them. They mark all the data on a little note card, feed their babies (with much chit-chating between the moms) and then weigh the babies again--dirty diapers and all--to see how much food they took in. This all seemed much more serious than what I was looking for. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something stupid, and that Harper was gaining weight. I didn't really care whether she'd gained a pound and four ounces or a pound and two, but not caring really wasn't acceptable. Anyway, between my apparently cavalier attitude and my inability to chit-chat with women when their boobs (and mine) are hanging out, it was a bit awkward and we definitely aren't going back.
• Thanks to Harper's healthy appetite, I've lost all but the last five pounds of my pregnancy weight, though I'm definitely not looking the same as I did pre-pregnancy. Twenty-five pounds might have melted off, but I still have a definite belly thanks to a complete lack of abdominal muscles. Like Doug on King of Queens, my stomach jiggles when I brush my teeth. I suspect it will be a long while before I'm able to remedy that.
• I experienced the full velocity of Harper's rocket poo. She caught the one-second window where I'd already removed the old diaper and hadn't quite gotten the new one around her and she unleashed her full power. It didn't quite make it to the far wall as I had guessed in my last post, but it made it past the end of the changing table, soiling everything in its path, including the changing pad cover, the changing pad, the clean diaper, the wipe warmer, her pacifier, the changing table, and most importantly, my hand. Then while I was still stunned by the grossness of the situation, she peed. It was bath time after that.