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Whenever we pick up Alice from a nap, we a guaranteed a little burst of ‘sunshine’… a smelly little toot or two that she’s been saving up for us. Alice, actually, farts a LOT, and yet not enough. She gets so much gas that her tiny little belly gets all bloated and hard, and she cries. Loudly. In a way, these stinky little messengers are helpful; when they REALLY start to smell like she’s crapping her pants, it means she’s about to do just that. Handy, huh? Sadly (happily?), Alice has only been evacuating her bowels once a day, or less. 🙁 While our pediatrician assures us that none of this will stop our little girl from being wildly successful in life, it’s probably hurting her a bit, and, frankly, I can’t imagine it will make her any little friends at the park, either. So, we’re trying two new sample formulas. The first has reduced lactose and partially-broken down proteins; preliminary results indicate that this gives Alice a) no relief and b) runny poop. <sigh> The second sample is completely lactose-free. We’ll keep you posted on how things turn out and/or come out (and I’m sure you’re delighted about that). 🙂

When it comes to formula, it seems that I’ve been lucky I haven’t killed Alice yet, or at least caused her leg to rot off or something. Example? I heard from a public health nurse that we have to mix the powder while the water is at near-boiling temperatures in order to sterilize the powder, which does not/cannot come sterilized from the formula factory. As such, I’ve been burning off my fingerprints trying to spare Alice disease… only to find out earlier today that the water should be at room temperature for mixing, as having it too warm will deteriorate some of the nutrients or some friggin’ thing. Next? I was told that we could feed Alice pre-made formula up to 24 hours old so long as she (or any hungry bystander) hasn’t actually had the nipple in her/his mouth (which triggers the end of the sterilization). So, for our roadtrip to Windsor, we keep a couple of bottles in the car at room temperature, and fed her one after a couple of hours, then another when we got to Windsor a couple of hours later. Alas, I am a BAD MOTHER. 🙁 Turns out you’re only allowed to have ’em out of the fridge for two hours, period, until they’re disease-ridden kill-your-baby meals, and only for one hour once the ol’ nipple is violated (we’ve been using them up to two whopping hours after this point). How, then, am I supposed to make it on, say, a five hour trip to anywhere?? Someone on the interwebs suggested bringing bottles of sterilized water and then adding formula as necessary, which is great, except that the same time limits apply to sterilized water, with or without the formula added. So, I just don’t get it. Then again, if Alice has lived this long with all my gaffes, we might as well switch her to diet coke or something. She’s tough. 😛

Below: Sometimes Rob lets me hold his camera!

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