No, I am not talking about Joshua. (Although, if he takes after Mommy, he could be a little stubborn at times). I am talking about Josh's umbiical cord stump. They say that it usually falls off by around 2 weeks. Well, 2 weeks came and went, and it was not budging. 3 weeks came and it was still hanging on. I thought it was never going to fall off, and he was doomed to walking around as an adult with an odd belly button. Well, at 4am, after my comatose feeding with Joshua, I went to change him. I noticed that the stump was missing. Hmmm.... I was ecstatic that it finally fell off. (3 1/2 weeks. Hopefully, he is not so much a late bloomer in other areas). The odd thing was that it was no where to be found. At 4am and half asleep, I really didn't want to be looking for this thing. It turned out that the stump was hiding in his dirty diaper that I just changed. Go figure... Finally, now Joshua can look oh so cute in the many onesies he has but hasn't been able to wear while the umbilical cord was still intact. Keith wants to keep it and put it in Josh's memory book. Uh, I am not so sure. We shall see.
2 comments:
For the record I asked "should we throw out his cord or do you want to keep it?" I did not say "let’s keep it." Besides who is the one who added the picture of it to the blog? :) It was not me. Either way, we are glad it finally fell off. As many parents know, it is harder to change a diaper with the stub still on. Changing a new Jewish baby is even harder. I think a NASCAR pit crew can get their race car back on the track faster than changing newborn Joshy. Here are the steps that were needed to change Josh early on. 1. Take off pants. 2. Take off diaper. 3. Put on pee pee tee pee 4. Change diaper. 5. Clean baby. 6. Clean pee pee and check to make sure his circumcision is ok. 7. Put on A&D cream. 8. Clean umbilical cord with rubbing alcohol. 9. Put diaper back on. 10. Make sure diaper is on and fold top down to ensure it does not rub up against his cord. 11. Make sure diaper is on fully to prevent blow outs. 12. Put his pants back on. That was the 12 step process for changing Josh. Now that his circumcision has healed, we do not need to clean it to the same extent we did before. We also do not need to do the steps associated with cleaning and care of the cord. So, the process is much more streamlined. To those of you who do not know, the pee pee tee pee is used to cover his penis so he does not spray the pit crew during the changing. It does not always work. Also, you should use rubbing alcohol and not regular booze as the process may drive you to drinking. Step 11 was added because I had a bad habit of giving him a plumber’s crack which often led to blow outs. What Barbara did not realize is that I was faking my ineptitude so she would not ask me to change him. Instead she taught me how to do it right and forced me to practice. So much for that plan. Step 12 was added because almost every time I changed Josh I left his pants off. Hey, it is hard to put the pants back on with a crying squirmy baby. So, I changed him and let him live care free. What is wrong with that? One thing that we have, but have not used yet is a wipe warmer. Our friends Jason and Chrisanne have one and they say their son Jack loves it. Perhaps I should break it out. Rumor has it that the warm wipes v. room temperature wipes make a difference in preventing the fire hose from spraining the changing crew. I will let you know how it goes.
Post a Comment