A Hairy Monster

Caleb loves hair. Absolutely loves it. Being as how he's currently my only child, there's not much separation between the two of us. What's mine is his. Especially my hair. He definitely thinks my hair belongs to him. He loves to hold it, pull on it, and most of all, he loves to eat it.

Until recently.

Now, he has discovered that he has his own hair. His own hair that is fun to hold and pull on (but sadly, not eat, though he sometimes seems to try to pull it out and then puts his hand in his mouth, checking for loose strands). At first, we worried that he was pulling on his ears. Then we thought maybe his scalp was too dry and that his head itched.

What it seems to be is that the only place on his head where the hair is long enough to grab is right behind his ears. So grab he does. It's especially bad when he's eating. When he has food on his hands, he seems to suddenly love his hair even more. Before he's finished eating, the hair on the sides of his head is sticking straight out. Now we have to wash his face, hands, and hair after he finishes a meal.

Today, Caleb was more interested in styling his hair than in eating. He barely ate any baby food at all. For lunch, we managed to get him to eat string cheese and bananas off his tray. We went out tonight for dinner, so Caleb refused to eat anything all together. Except for his bottle.

We started him on the bottle three days ago. I'm not actually a fan of breastfeeding. And since Caleb's not really gaining weight, I figure he's not getting enough nutritions from nursing. He nurses the worst after his afternoon nap, so we've been giving him a bottle then instead. It's been so nice for me and Brandon seems to enjoy being able to feed our son too. But the best part has been that Caleb has taken to it as if he's always been on a bottle. It's been great.

We've only been doing the one bottle feeding a day. Except today. Today he was so cranky at dinner (yes, it was past his bedtime) and he wouldn't eat anything we gave him, so we made him another bottle and he drank the whole thing. It's so weird to me. We tried giving him a bottle when he was younger and he threw up so many times he ended up puking bile. So we went back to exclusive breastfeeding. I guess I've mainly stuck with it because I feel guilty weaning him. Like that's something a bad mother would do. Sometimes I feel a twinge of jealousy when I hear of other moms who can't breastfeed their babies for medical reasons and just gave their baby a bottle. I really hate nursing that much.

I don't know how I started talking about Caleb's hair and ended up talking about this. I guess it's just something I spend a lot of time thinking about.

Anyway, Caleb doesn't really have much hair and sometimes I think he's going to pull what he does have out, he just loves to eat it so much. My hair has enjoyed the temporary break though, that's for sure. Maybe I should give mine back to him though, so he doesn't make himself bald.