BAD MUMMY

Cohen has been a really easy baby so far (like, 'lull me into a false sense of security for if we decide to have another one' type easy) and apart from the breastfeeding which didn't go our way, he's been a dream baby. Now he's a bit older though I am starting to see the mischief in his eyes and thinking perhaps things are about to get more interesting in the 'easy' stakes. Lately he has been trying to climb things. If I sit on the floor with him he will try to climb me. If there is a box on the floor he will climb up it. He climbs the Bumbo, his grandparents dog, his toy box. He chases the cat (much to the cats unamusement) and generally looks for trouble. This has resulted in a few tears the last few days due to face plants and the other week I had my first 'Bad Mummy' moment when he fell tumbled down the steps on our deck and banged his chin. I have only just started adjusting to the fact the he is no longer just a blob who stays where I put him, and I completely underestimated the speed of which he can shimmy (commando crawl) and turned around for 2 second to hang a towel on the washing line and then heard a thump and a cry and there he was dangling feet on deck, chin on next step down. Big cuddles were all it took for him to get over it (phew!) but that was incident #1 (and I'm still trying to understand how they don't get the concept of edges!).

Then came the red bum. Cohen is currently breaking his top right tooth and we don't get teething pain here or grizzly waking through the night baby (thank god!) but we do get acidy type poop and dribble rash. So on Monday we had a bit of redness which I tried to counteract with all manner of creams and potions but he was pooping every single nappy (like, 7 times a day type pooping!) and it just kept getting worse. I felt awful about it and hated seeing his little botty looking like that so I started looking outside the box since the creams (I tried about 5 different brands!) weren't working and stumbled across the baking soda and warm water theory. Lots of info about this with rave reviews so I thought I would try it .... FAIL! Happy nappy free kicking baby turned into squawking in pain and crying real tears baby as it must have stung like nothing else. I felt like the worst mother in the whole world. Moral of the story: Don't always trust Google! Like Google will tell you that 'Sniffly nose = Pregnant' when you are in depserate need of googling pregnancy symptoms, they will also tell you the 2tsp on baking soda in one cup of warm water is great for nappy rash. They don't mention that it will cause them excruciating stingy pain! Never again!

But you know what? Next morning his little bottom was almost good as new!