Doctor's Orders

I always appreciated what a laid-back and easy baby Noah was. Turns out, I am appreciating his relaxed baby ways even more now....now that I am facing Anna's more high-strung baby ways lately.

Two weeks ago we took her to the doctor about her unfriendly fussiness. Two weeks later, today, she is still fussy, if not fussier. In fact, I think you could easily categorize our little She-Ra as an all around raging, short-tempered, demanding tyrant. It has been so bad over the past two weeks that I took her back to the dr. today with my tail between my legs and asked her to please tell me again why she thinks this is just teething and to maybe double check on that in case there is still something else to blame. Two weeks of Motrin and Tylenol and teething swabs and teething tablets have done not a thing to appease her seeming pains. The dr. checked her over and agreed she is a totally healthy baby girl and decided it is not the teething bit after all then - given the lack of teeth or red irritated gums. We talked about a typical day in the house of Anna and her diet and the dr. gave me a set of highly difficult steps to follow to remedy her extreme moodiness. Read carefully.

Feed her baby food.
Get her out of the house more.
Get her on a routine.

What?!?! That's it?!?! The doctor went on to tell me how quick, alert, healthy, active, engaging, curious, and smart Anna clearly is. A real go getter she says. For this reason...she needs more stimulation. (Translation: She is bored and therefore frustrated). Hence all the irritability and screaming lately. But seriously, how was I to know? She wiggles and wants out of my arms, but when I set her down she lights up with fury. I think the real diagnosis here is this:

HIGH MAINTENANCE!!

And it is for this reason that I feel like a baby dunce all over again. All the drama and worrying I have endured on Anna's behalf lately, and all she really needed was a little something more to do and to eat!? Noah was just too easy on us his first couple years. So really, this is all his fault, I guess. :)

(little note - this dr. visit was the first outing I did with both Noah and Anna all by myself where I wasn't really just out to drop one or the other off somewhere and Noah was an absolute angel for the entire hour we were there and waiting and talking with the dr. Just a perfect angel. See what I mean - too laid back for my own good)

And yeah, I have been putting off feeding her baby food. Probably out of my own fear of committing to another time consuming task in my day. It's funny, too, because with Noah it was just so novel to try new foods. We did it as soon as we could. He was 4 mos. Here Anna is a few days shy of 6 months and I have to have a medical professional tell me to feed my baby. Good grief. So I obediently went to Wal-Mart (my 2nd official venture out with Noah and Anna all by myself where no dropping off was involved) and I bought a ton of stage 1 baby foods. I got home and promptly fed her sweet potatoes. And she ate like a pro. Which only further supports the dr's claim at how quick she is. To date, I have only fed her baby rice 3 times. And I stuck with it for all of a few minutes before I let her off the hook (or maybe I was just letting myself off the hook). The point is, she took to eating much quicker than I expected. Fine. I give in. Bring on the baby food regimen.

And a routine? Well, that is just right up my organization skills alley. No more trying to figure out Anna's napping needs and timing. The doctor said to pick what I want out of the day for her and for me. Done. The first thing on our getting-a- better-routine for today was putting her down to nap the same time as Noah. And it turned out Anna didn't mind a bit.

Go me.
Go doctor's orders.