My other baby

Stella for President

Please nominate “The Life and Times of Stella” in The Bump’s Mommy Blog Awards (in the “Best Baby Blog” category)!

Yep, it’s a long shot. But we could use the $1,000 prize to recoup our losses. Hypoallergenic formula and therapy are expensive, y’all.
Thank you for your support. If we win, Stella promises to deliver successful, bipartisan [...]

Sugar Would Not Eat It! (And neither would Stella, for a while.)

I can’t decide if this is sick or brilliant but I just bought Stella a gorgeous book about a cat with a feeding aversion.
Sort of.
The New York Times gave this really interesting, charming children’s book a big thumbs up, and the subject matter was just so weirdly perfect that I just had to get it. [...]

FYI

Never tell a mother that her baby looks nothing like her. I don’t care if they look like they’re from different planets. Don’t. Say. It.
I carried Stella in my uterus for nine and a half months then pushed her out of my hoo-ha after 32 hours of agonizing labor. And then there were the feeding [...]

Stella goes to the market

Cody has taken this week off (well, 85% of it anyway) so it was the perfect opportunity to take Stella to Pike Place Market for the first time. Finally! With Cody wearing her in the Baby Bjorn, we explored Seattle’s carnival of treats. It was her dream come true! She loves walks, and this one [...]

A Little, Hopeful Update

Yesterday, she wound up at 600 mls or a bit more (up from the 530 that I’d stated). For her last feeding of the night, at 11:30pm, I was able to feed her while sitting in bed in the dark, and she was unswaddled, holding my hand. She calmly finished what was left in the [...]

This just in

She just ate 75 more mls. The new total, and record, is about 850 mls!
This is MORE than she EVER had in a single day with the tube.
Stella is amazing!

Japanese Proverb

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”

Stella rolls on.

I should know better by now. With Stella and her feeding issues, the answers are never simple. There are no clean, black-and-white solutions to this layered, messy challenge. The clogged nipple seems to have been only part of the issue. The fact of the matter is, Stella is doing well, but as her occupational therapist reminded [...]

Daddy saves the day!

It was a curious morning. Stella was happy as could be. She wanted to eat and took right to the bottle. She started with such gusto! Then, would barely suck at all, doing the short, unenthusiastic sucks we referred to as “fake nursing” back in Stella’s breastfeeding days. It made no sense.
During her evening feeding, [...]