Five surprising ways newborns are kinda dirty
- Their nails are long! And dirty! Who would have thought? Not me. I cut them every other day, it seems, and there is usually dirt underneath them. What gives? He doesn’t go anywhere to get them dirty!
- They have gunky eyes. I hadn’t experienced eye boogers like this since Darling Husband and I owned a cat — yeah, we owned a cat once. Long story that ended with us NOT owning a cat, although it had nothing to do with the eye boogers. Anyway, just like with the cat, I had to get accustomed to wiping away this eye crusts and glops. Because at times — like when a string of it reaches from his eyelid to his lower lashes — it is damn gross.
- They have sweaty armpits. Or is this just my baby? Oh God, it is, isn’t it? He’s some kind of strange baby who is entering early puberty, isn’t he?
- They get dirt trapped inside their clenched fists … On the rare occasions Baby Boy would open his fists, I would catch a glimpse of a dirt fleck. But before I could grab it, oops! Fists clammed up again.
- … and in their neck folds. If I had a penny for every speck of dust (dust?) I find and wipe out of Baby Boy’s neck crevasses, I would be able to afford a Bugaboo Frog.
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
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