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| Please note the baby doll in the corner. That's just sad. |
It’s me, Guru Louise. I’m sorry I’ve been completely checked
out recently…but I have a really good reason.
You know that awesome post Lydia wrote about The Sweet Spot? (That, by the way, went totally viral. So proud of her!) Well, I just had another baby four weeks ago and so I am squarely
back in the The Blur. Big time. In fact, I’m so Blur-y right now I’m not even
entirely sure I’m typing this in discernible English. In my head this post
sounds like this: “Baby here. Leaking stuff. Hungry. Wipe butt. Vomit.”
Did you catch all that?
Actually, I’m happy to report that things are going pretty
well overall. My big kids (ages 3 and 5) l-o-v-e the new baby, big-time. Our
baby is healthy and fairly easy to soothe, so that’s awesome. Plus, he didn’t
pull any of that day/night reversal bullschmidt when he was born. I mean, he’s
still up every couple hours to eat at night, but he goes back to sleep afterward, which is something my first baby never,
ever did. She was all, ‘Hey! It’s 4am!
Now is a good time to have my quiet, alert time and be super cute! Oh, sorry,
did you want to sleep now?”
I’m not saying I’m completely lucid or anything, but I don’t
feel like the walking dead either so, like I said, I think things are going
well for a few weeks in. Now that we’re hammering this newborn into our family
life I realize I’m remembering some things….stuff that I had forgotten about as
my first two kids got older. And so I give you: 5 Things I Forgot about
Newborns:
1. I Have To Do All the Things One-Handed. I can’t believe
I forgot about this. For the last three weeks straight I’ve been doing
everything with one hand because, guess what? There is a baby in the other.
Some stuff isn’t so bad…for instance, I can totally color with crayons and pour
a cup of milk with one hand. But allow me to outline some essential tasks of a
SAHM that you just cannot do one-handed:
Rip off a paper towel
Change the trash can liner
Open a bag of murtherfurking goldfish
Hold a 3yo still while you wet-wipe his ass
Hold a 3yo still while you wet-wipe his ass
Yesterday out of sheer desperation I asked the 5yo to make
lunch for us because I just couldn’t spread the sunflower
butter on the bread with one hand. Let me tell you that I’m pretty sure my
one-handed effort would have been less of a mess than her very creative attempt to make 3 sandwiches.
2. I’ve Got the Newborn Jiggle. I was paying for groceries
at Trader Joe’s yesterday and realized I was jiggling back and forth from left
to right while swiping my credit card. You know what I’m talking about—when
holding a newborn it is instinctive to make your body do a slight shake and
jiggle to keep baby happy. Except that my baby was tucked snuggly in his
stroller and was in no way touching me—and yet, I was still jiggling like a
crazy drug addict with shot nerves. Weeeee!
3. I'm starting to resemble my newborn. These days you can frequently find me nursing the baby and whilst this is happening I am essentially unable to use my body. Similar to my baby, I sit mostly in one spot, just hoping someone will throw some food in my general direction or give me something to drink. (Last night I was visibly rooting toward my husband as he sat drinking a beer at the other end
of the couch). Also, I cry a lot about everything, as if I just don’t have the
words to express my frustration.Words are too hard right now. Oh, and I’m leaking bodily fluids all over the
place. You know what I’m talking about. So while my newborn is having diaper
blowouts and spitting up, I’m leaking breastmilk and changing sanitary pads. It’s gross, but
at least the baby and I are equally gross
at the moment.
4. All My Work Gets Undone. Immediately. I forgot this
part, too. My husband took the big kids out last weekend for a couple hours and
I was all, OK! I’m going to get some stuff done!!! So I took a shower, bathed
the baby and then fed him. <Fistpump> We're both clean and he is full. I'm awesome. The baby then puked two breasts worth of milk *into* my nursing
tank top like it was a toilet and then started howling because he was hungry again. So when my husband got home moments later the baby and I were both
filthy and the baby was hungry…and when he asked me what I had been up to I
just looked at him a vacant, shell-shocked expression on my face.
5. The Nipple Twister. My son, like all newborns, has no
control over his extremities. He doesn’t even know his arms and legs are connected to his body,
let alone that he has fingers. So why is it that at almost every feed he manages
to flail his little hand and land it directly on my boob, clamp onto
the nipple and twist it while digging in with his Wolverine-like fingernails?! GAH!!!
