You’d think I would have wised up by now …
Baby Boy is SIX WEEKS OLD today. I can’t believe it!
I also can’t believe I just made such a rookie mistake. I was a zombie when I got up for this feeding, and decided not to change his diaper before I nursed him …
… even though I KNOW he spits up if we try to change him after he eats. I blame my fuzzy, sleep-deprived state.
So of course, I changed him afterwards and he spit all his milk up on the changing table. And now we are starting all over again … back to Square One Boob One.
Note to self: Being lazy with a baby does not pay!
Lessons from the Houdini school of parenting
How I got Baby Boy to sleep last night: A five-step method
- Held his arms by his sides
- Swaddled him
- Grabbed the end of the swaddle blanket and pulled it even tighter, to keep his arms from busting loose
- Held onto his knees and pressed his legs against the mattress of his bassinet
- Kept holding his legs until he stopped thrashing them around, and drifted off to sleep
It’s funny that baby blankets have such cutesy patterns when, in fact, they are basically straightjackets.
Five things about my new knockers
- They are pretty freaking fantastic …
- … you know, when they’re nice and round and full of milk, and making incredible cleavage for the first time in my life
- When they’re empty, they sort of look/feel like empty wallets
- It’s like having a boob job that comes and goes many times throughout the day
- I am purposely not even thinking of what unspeakable things might happen to them after I’m done breastfeeding
Five things about taking a baby to a movie
I took Baby Boy to his first movie yesterday — a special Mommy/Baby showing of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. It went really well, but … uh … here’s what I learned …
- There is a stroller “parking lot” in the hallway. When you naively push your stroller by it — because there is only one stroller there, and zero signage — the staff will get pissy that you didn’t automatically know to put your stroller there
- Babies clamp down — HARD! — on your boob when the movie gets especially loud
- Babies cry — HARD! — at the vampire/werewolf scenes, and you will feel like a bad mommy for bringing him to something so scary
- There is a fancy Diaper Genie thing near the changing station, and you will struggle helplessly with it … in front of a crowd of competent mommies
- You will walk out of the theatre with a wet breastmilk splotch on your top … and not notice until you are in your car
Riding in cars with boys a boy
Breaking news: I drove our car for the first time in more than FIVE WEEKS. Woohoo!
Technically, I am not supposed to drive until Sunday — the official six-week point — but I was going completely stir-crazy have been feeling great for a while now, so I took the plunge and drove for the first time yesterday.
It felt like I was 16 all over again, getting my full license and taking out my mom’s car for the first time. Total freedom!
Of course, Darling Husband and I only have the one car, so taking it meant that I had to drive him to work first. And that meant that I had to have Baby Boy up, dressed, changed, and fed — and myself washed, dressed and fed — by a certain time. Yikes!
It worked out well. We needed to leave at 7:30 a.m., and I had gotten up with Baby Boy for a feeding at 6 a.m. I was able to get both of us ready in time, and Darling Husband drove us all to his office.
It was a weird feeling when he walked through the doors and left us in the parking lot. I hadn’t driven in more than five weeks, and I had never driven with Baby Boy. Up until that point, I’d actually been sitting in the backseat with him. Couldn’t do that any longer! But what if he spit up and choked on it? I wouldn’t be able to reach him. Eeeeeeeeek.
I made sure his little mirror was adjusted perfectly, so I could see him whenever I looked in the rearview mirror. But I didn’t have time for much more worrying. He was half-awake — and waking up more every second! — so I put the pedal to the metal and drove away, so he’d go back to sleep.
I was doing it! I was driving! With a baby! Who knew?
Once I had tasted freedom, outside the four walls of our condo, I just couldn’t go back. We went to Wal-Mart on a very important mission to buy Darling Husband underwear (after I’d begged him to come up with something useful we could buy), and buy Baby Boy some Nuk soothers (my mom was not pleased with the Avent ones, and I was sick of defending them) and a rattle (surprisingly, he didn’t own one).
After Wal-Mart, we spent a couple of hours at my mom’s. Then we spent a couple of hours with Darling Husband’s mom. And then it was time to pick up Darling Husband. We hadn’t been home once, and it was brilliant! Instead we saw PEOPLE and TREES and CARS and STUFF and OMIGOD I AM SO SICK OF BEING STUCK IN THE CONDO.
Needless to say, Baby Boy and I took the car again today. We discovered that we kind of LOVE getting out together.
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Heather's Handmade Life 