Guessing Game

First of all how did anyone parent a child before Google, Twitter, and Text Messaging? Seems impossible to me. :)

I've often said the hardest part of parenting to me is all the guessing involved. Babies are such crazy little creatures. Sometimes they do bizarre things and you might have no idea why.

Sadie has kept me guessing since day one. When she starts acting differently it would be nice if she could open her mouth and tell me why. Since she can't do that I have to play detective and see if I can figure it out. Normally at the first sign of craziness I hop on my phone and google my question. I know sometimes the Internet can be overly dramatic but I've found in parenting there are some really good resources out there. Generally if I see the same type of information in several different sources then I take special note.

At the same time as I'm googling, sometimes before, sometimes right after, I'm sending out a text message to a couple of friends asking if their babies "have ever...". It is always nice to know that Sadie isn't the only one acting a certain way. From there I go straight to Twitter. Twitter has been like a mommy support group for me. A lot of people I follow/follow me are moms and have been moms longer than I have. They normally have really good advice.

Oh yeah, and if I'm still stumped or I think it might be serious I call a nurse at Sadie's pediatric clinic. They are my last resort. :)

I will say, before a baby I never text, tweeted, or googled, color and consistency changes in baby poop, constipation in infants, spit up and acid reflux, burping, food allergies, how much should a baby be eating, teething, etc. Now it is nothing for my to text my friend Ashley and say, "Hey, what color is David's poop?" In fact it seems quite normal to talk about these things.

All of this to say we are in another one of those guessing stages. Sadie has decided to stop taking all or any of her bottles without some sort of struggle. Well, that's not true. Typically her first three bottles (7, 10, and 1) she takes pretty well. The 1pm bottle can cause some issues but most of the time she gets it down. It's the 4 and 7 pm bottles that are really tough. She did this once before and it only lasted a week then she was back to normal. My child loves to suck down her bottles and would probably eat every hour if I let her. For her not to want to eat means something is up.

My first guess has been teeth. She does show signs of teething but she has for a while now.

Still no tooth.

Some other culprits have been perhaps tummy trouble due to new solid foods and things like that. Again, I just take the signs and try to do some detective work to figure it out.

I guess I might never know unless she pops a tooth or settles down after a food change.

And yes if she keeps this up over the next few days I will call my doctor. She's very happy and pleasant so I'm not worried there is something seriously wrong.

I admit that these changes can really stress me out sometimes but I need to get over it. Once we get this thing figured out there will something else to google, text and tweet about.

Parenting really is the hardest and most humbling job in the world but there is NO WAY I'd trade a second of it for anything.

And because I can't leave you without a picture here's my little cupcake.

Here's her face after I told her to stop pulling up her dress and chewing on it.