Poop Watch Day 3

Any good christian knows that Easter marks the end of a period known as Lent. It is traditional to choose a vice or something less than holy to give up during the 40 days preceding Easter. Most people choose things like Chocolate, Alcohol, Cigars, etc. but I guess it takes a few years of life and some influence by the rest of the human race to know what is a proper thing to give up for Lent. In Claire's case, it appears she decided to give up pooping. However, the other concept she hasn't figured out is that after Lent is over it is okay to resume consuming Chocolate, drinking your Alcohol, or hanging out in the Cigar shop with your buddies. It has now been 3 days, yes 72 hours, since Claire's last successful bowel movement. If this happened to me, I'd be downright grumpy and likely be walking around very awkwardly. Although Claire doesn't walk, she's happy as a clam right now. And to use the same word twice in two consecutive sentences, her intestines must be clammed up good right now. ... but wait, all the baby books we read tell us that it is quite normal for babies to go several days without a bowel movement. This is in stark contrast to the 45 poops she used to take everyday, so you can see why this might be cause for concern for new parents like Sarah and I. However, breastfed babies are rarely, if ever constipated and as their bodies and digestive systems continue to develop, they become very efficient well oiled machines. (no pun intended). I'd like to boast that perhaps Claire is the world's most efficient human being. She is now able to extract 100% of the nutrients from Sarah's milk and simply excreet loads of water. I should point out that she is still wetting herself a million times a day. The other theory I have is that Claire isn't that special, but it's her mom (my beautiful wife) who is the one to be impressed by. Perhaps the milk that she produces is so perfectly formulated that any baby could easily and quickly digest every last vitamin. I'm thinking of selling Sarah's milk on Ebay touting it as a perfect baby formula that will completely eliminate the need for your baby to poop. Think of the way the world would be changed. No-one would ever poop again because we'd all continue to drink breastmilk for the rest of our lives. Doing some quick math, I think we'd save the world about 5 billion gallons of water a day, not to mention the amount of toilet paper saved (especially for those of you who use half a roll each time you go). The only problem with this solution is that Sarah would somehow have to produce enough milk to be the wet nurse for every human being on the planet. This would be hard, but I think she might enjoy it because she'd be able to eat all the Cheesecake and Meatloaf that she wanted.

Anyway, Grandma and Grandpa are now packing and getting ready to head back to the great state of Iowa, which to throw in some trivia, has now surpassed California to become the nation's second largest producer of wind power in the country (Texas is first). We had a great time with the grandparents, and Claire appeared to enjoy the extra attention. And now that I think about it, she was so caught up in the events of the weekend that she simply forgot to poop. Yesterday we all went and hike up Mission Peak in Fremont. Its a 6 mile hike round trip and involves about 2000 vertical feet of elevation gain. At the top there are sweeping views of both the bay area and the central valley. In retrospect, taking a 10-week old baby up a mountain that has so much wind that hang gliders launch from the top, was probably a bad idea, but she's still kicking and screaming today, so I guess it was okay.

For Easter, Claire got to wear her first dress as we all got prettied up and had a lovely brunch at the Cinnibar Hills Golf Club in South San Jose. With her dress, her pretty pink tights and the bow in her hair, Claire really did look like the belle of the ball and probably would have turned a few more heads if the boys in her age group were actually capable of doing so. Fine with me though, because before I know it I'm going to be fighting them off with sticks.