stinky brown icky grossness

What am I talking about? Baby vitamins. Have you experienced them? Word on the street is that exclusively breastfed babies (like our very own Princess Reese) should take a daily vitamin in order to get vitamin D, especially babies who live in places like the North Pole where there isn't much sun. Otherwise they get rickets, which sounds downright dreadful. Since I'm a pretty good mommy who would prefer that Reese does not get rickets (even though we don't live in the North Pole), I bought the recommended vitamins and attempted to put them in her mouth with the supplied dropper. Yeah, ok. Easier said than done. First of all, they are disgusting smelling. I'm gagging, she's gagging, Paco's gagging...its gross. And the smell lingers. For days. Second of all, they come shooting right back out at me because Reese has been diagnosed with vitamin refusal reflex ...trust me, I'm a therapist and this is a very acurate diagnosis. And thirdly, they stain everything they come into contact with...clothes, burpclothes, babies, cats, mommys, etc. So for the past 6 months, I've been trying to give her these stinky brown icky gross vitamins and have not been very successful and have stained A LOT of stuff.

And then she turned 6 months old and a whole new issue regarding vitamins emerged. Now it seems that she not only needs the vitamin D (thank you summer sun for providing that for us) but she also needs iron so that she does not become anemic. Hmmmm. But wait, this can be easily solved by giving her iron fortified baby cereal, right? Well, technically yes, but only if she will actually eat the cereal rather than gag on it, fake cough like a pro, and then ppppffffffththhhttt it out of her mouth. It seems she also has been diagnosed with cereal refusal reflex and so that's not going to work...which leaves us back at the vitamin dilemma and the fear of the dreaded rickets and anemia.

So I break out the vitamin bottle again today and open it up and take a good sniff...gag. No way. I can't do it. I look at Reese and she's shaking her head no way and pointing at Paco. I look at Paco and he's shaking his head no way and pointing at...wait, cats can't point. Anyway, there must be a better option. Reese and I take a trip to our local pharmacy and scout out the options. Look Reese! Here's one that says its for babies and it has vitamin D and iron and says "great tasting berry flavor" on the package. Yay! Our problems are solved!

Bring the great tasting berry flavored vitamins home and pop those suckers in her mouth and...apparently, the people who manufacture this have a slightly different idea about the concept of "great" and "berry tasting". There is nothing great about them. Have they ever tasted berriess? Do they even know what berries are? And they stain just as bad no matter what they taste like. Anyway, we're going to keep plugging away with the stinky brown icky gross great tasting berry flavored vitamins until she either gets over her cereal refusal reflex or....I don't know. She's just going to take them, and that's that. Why? Because I'm the mom and I say so.

But what about the staining issue from the stinky brown icky gross great tasting berry flavored vitamins? Good question! I realized that we have JUST THE BIB for the job, which was so nicely supplied by our lovely friends in Ohio....thank's guys! Seems like those Buckeyes are good for something after all...