Night Of The Living Baby

Aaron and I have been having some breastfeeding issues. To make a long story short, after weeks of fussing and refusal on his part and lots of pain and frustration on my part, we finally visited a lactation consultant (twice in one week, actually, but that's beside the point). Among other things, the consultant suspected that we might be having a yeast problem. To effectively treat this kind of yeast infection, both mother and baby must be treated, as it can go back and forth between them. She recommended using something called Gentian Violet for four to seven days; all that is required is to paint the baby's mouth with it then nurse, then voila, pain gone! Sounded simple enough.

So Saturday night, after Aaron's bath, we give it a try. I dip a Q-tip into the Gentian Violet and swab Aaron's mouth with it, letting him suck on it for a few seconds, just like the instructions the lactation person gave me said to do. Aaron's tongue starts going crazy--in Alex's words, "like a dog with peanut butter in his mouth"--and he starts gagging a little, presumably because the Gentian Violet tastes nasty. I look at the bottle and see a funny little note: "Keep out of the reach of children. If swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away."

Great...

Alex and I start panicking. Alex runs to get his cell phone and the number for Poison Control. I think there might have been some profanity involved, but I don't really remember because I was a little preoccupied by my own profanity and the fact that I had just poisoned my child. 

Alex comes back in with Poison Control on the line. Aaparently everything will be ok. Oral medications have strict standards, the Poison Control guy says, and whoever makes Gentian Violet just didn't want to adhere with them, ergo the warning. And Gentian Violet works great for yeast, he adds.

Needless to say, that was the end of the Gentian Violet experiment. 

There was one side effect, however: apparently Gentian Violet turns babies into zombies. Luckily, after a day or two of Aaron having a purple mouth and exclaiming "BRAINS!" (I can only assume that's what his goos and gaas meant),  the effects wore off. Now everything is back to normal, with the small exception of one pair of permanently purple footie pajamas.

Here are a few pictures of Zombie Aaron. These are actually from the morning after the craziness, so his mouth is actually quite a bit less purple than it was. Notice the purple jammies and the purple fists...