Blogging & Babies Don’t Mix

June 27, 2013

Hello Outside World!

I see all of you, out and about on the other side of my window panes.

Greetings from Newbornland.

You know, that place where time is all contorted.

That place where you can, of course, leave the house — and your intentions to do so are quite noble — but it just never seems to happen.

That place where you live under the cover of darkness because your new baby likes to party by the light of the moon. {It’s good to know that my college all-nighters have served as decent parental training, even if they seem like Amateur Hour compared to this eight-pound nocturnal professional.}

That place where everything else gets neglected {except the other kids, mostly}. You know, things like general house upkeep. Not the kind where I’m being picky or OCD. The kind where you wonder how much longer the family can actually function without a load of laundry getting done. The kind where the dog has begun to pack a bag and seek out a more attentive family.

I’ll give you a tour of Newbornland — in case you’ve forgotten. Don’t worry, it will be super-quick.

First, we’ll visit the couch and chair where I sit and nurse the baby for about 20 hours every day. I’m starting to wonder if any scant muscle tone I’ve developed over the years has completely atrophied at this point.

Then, I’ll show you the diaper changing station.

And, finally, I’ll make a quick, passing reference — from a painful distance — to my bed and to the shower that are allegedly upstairs. I can’t quite remember because I haven’t seen them in a while.

That completes our tour. Don’t trip on the laundry piles when seeing yourself out.

But, despite the perils of Newbornland, this baby melts my heart into a million pieces. Even if I am getting about two or three hours of sleep per night.

It’s fleeting. It’s fleeting, I tell myself.

I chant it. He will grow so fast. It’s a blip.

{These statements seem much less rational and comforting at 4am.}

So in addition to my dog and my house feeling neglected, my blog is all dusty and unloved too.

But the truth is that babies and blogging don’t mix. I would give you the top ten reasons why, but I don’t think I can stay awake that long.  Here are the ones that immediately come to mind:

  • I can’t type with one hand.
  • I can’t really concentrate or think clearly.
  • How many is that? And what day is it?
  • Any free moment I have is taken up by my kids or my ice cream habit.
  • It seems wrong to blog when I don’t have groceries in the house.
  • What was I just saying?

See what I mean?

That’s OK. Because I’m busy sniffing this baby’s head.

 

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Party of Five

June 17, 2013

Our third child — a boy — was born on Wednesday, June 12.

He weighed in at eight pounds even, my smallest baby.

So between his smaller size and this being my third delivery, this should have been a breeze.

Right?

Wrong.

I’ll spare you all the details, but apparently delivering a baby who is face-up makes for a more difficult birth. So, when it was over, I was pretty pleased to see that my two legs are still attached to my torso. Somehow. And, more importantly, everyone is happy and healthy.

The face-up business was a last-minute surprise in a string of acrobatic stunts this child has been pulling for a while now. In the last few weeks of my pregnancy, this baby went from breech position to head-down four separate times. So anything was possible.

But, looking at his face now, I have to believe that all of his in-utero tricks are now out of his system and he will be nothing but sweet from this moment forward.

{Sometimes sleep deprivation makes people say delirious things. That, and the intoxicating newborn baby smell. How has someone not bottled this stuff yet?}

And I’m happy to report that naming our sweet boy only took three hours after his arrival. We had what my husband calls a “short list” going in, if you consider 5-7 entries to be short. I should also mention that, in the delivery room, he was online looking at baby name sites. You know, just a little diversion in between my contractions.

But yes, our son has a name. You’ll have to take my word for it since I’m one of those people who doesn’t put her kids’ names on the blog. I’m probably already facing potential litigation from them once they are old enough to read my posts, so this way I can say, “None of this is about you. Do you see your names anywhere? This is all fiction, my love. Fiction based oh-so-loosely on that time you did something kind of just like that. But you were wearing a blue shirt, not a green one.”

As for my older two kids, let me describe their reaction to this life-changing event as a case of mixed reviews. I won’t point fingers, but I think this picture really sums things up best.

So we’re all finding our way. Our older two are learning that it can, in fact, take even longer to get us out of the house than it did before. My husband and I are figuring out how to distribute our attention while not showing the abject fear of now being outnumbered by children. We will get there.

In the meantime, I have to slowly reintroduce wine and caffeine back into my life. And I have to find a post-partum swim burqa to wear at the town pool this summer.

But more than anything, I will remember how blessed I am. And I will take it all in. The crazy days and nights of a newborn {mostly nights}. The way he curls his limbs up tight to his body and squeaks for attention and rests flat on my shoulder in a blissed-out, post-milk state. Because he will only be this small for a short, short while.

 

 

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How Not to Pack a Hospital Bag

June 6, 2013

“Did you pack your bag?”

“Nah, not yet. But I will.”

“When?”

“Soon. It will only take ten minutes.”

“So just do it.”

“Yeah.”

This conversation happens about once a day between my husband and me. It’s not that he’s being particular. He does have a point. After all, I could deliver at pretty much any time now.

And I think that, really, he doesn’t want to be stuck with some made-for-TV scenario where I’m doubled over in labor and barking a series of packing list items at him in the middle of the night, while not waking up our children or neighbors. Which is fair. He will want to save his focus for testing the limits of our new minivan while getting me to the hospital. I mean, we were told it was a performance vehicle, so what better way to find out?

{Might I say that I am kind of loving the minivan? Sure, it rides nice. But I really am infatuated by the prospect of having a new place to put my coffee cup every day this week. It’s also fascinating to drive a car that clearly has more storage space than my first Manhattan apartment. And, really, I’m so relieved that my kids have a comfortable environment in which they can recline after an arduous day of play. But don’t worry, this isn’t a sponsored post.}

Anyway, the packing. See how distracted I get when I think about getting that bag together?

Maybe if I approach it differently, I’ll be motivated to get it done. Like packing for a little vacation.

After all, I get to sleep alone in a room. In a bed with multiple recline options. Also:

  • I get to have full reign over the remote control.
  • I can push a button and someone will come to ask what I need.
  • I will have Wi-Fi.
  • And pain medication on demand.
  • I won’t be allowed to do any household chores.
  • I even get a massage and dinner included with my stay. All that’s missing are the drink tickets for the all-inclusive bar.

So I’m totally packing those back issues of Us Weekly and People that I never got to read. And my most comfortable flip flops. My head phones. Perhaps a good book, too.

Wow, this is starting to sound fabulous, isn’t it? Do I need my passport?

I can’t forget my sunscreen, because I never go on vacation without it. OH, WAIT. I won’t be outside. At all.

I will be inside. Birthing a human. And while that will be the clear highlight of my stay, it probably won’t feel like a vacation so much — at least  from a comfort and relaxation perspective.

After I meet my baby and then sequester my husband in a closet until he finds a name he likes, that means I’ll have a tiny new roommate. One who will probably want to stay up all night during my vacation. That’s OK. We can watch bad TV together at 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 am.

But then, in between those intervals, the nurses will wake me up approximately every 27 minutes, just as I approach REM mode. Again, not so vacation-ish.

Also, my meals will arrive on a tray and its contents will jiggle in an unnatural state.

Oh, and those backless gowns. They’re not as much “Saturday-night-wedding-backless” as “Is-my-post-partum-bottom-half-hanging-out-backless.”

See, this is not productive. Who would be motivated to pack for this? Forget the magazines and the book. Now I’m all hung up on nursing supplies and hospital admission forms and contact lists and flip flops for the shower.

But still. I get to take home the best souvenir ever.

As long as I remember to pack an outfit and bring a car seat for my new roommate.

Today. I will pack today. Later today. Probably.

 

 

 

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