Things I Forgot About Life With a Newborn

(When do they stop being newborns, anyway?)

• The insane amount of laundry they generate. Between the diapers and the regular clothes, my poor washing machine is due to have a nervous breakdown any day now.
• Speaking of diapers, they're actually pretty easy to change and wash at this stage. I forgot that they don't get bad until after we introduce solids...so I was thinking maybe Weston could just live on Mama-milk until after he's potty trained. That's perfectly reasonable, right?
• They're freaked out by weird things. Luke hated noise. Anything above a whisper annoyed him. We live by the train tracks and even though he heard those trains multiple times every day, it still took him EIGHT MONTHS to get used to them. Weston, on the other hand, freaks out every time he--are you ready for this?--YAWNS. Seriously. I'm thinking that either (a) his throat is always sore from the reflux and yawning with a sore throat is kind of unpleasant or (b) he thinks he has used up all the oxygen in the room and is worried there won't be any left for his next breath.
• They hate the car. Actually, this might just be MY newborns because it seems like every other baby in the country loves the carseat and could spend hours napping in it. In fact, if I read one more parenting article that says going for a ride in the car is a sure way to soothe a crying baby, I might start screaming myself. Because in my experience? Going for a car ride is a sure way to send a perfectly calm baby into hysterics.
• They pull their own hair. And then have the audacity to get mad at whoever is holding them at the time.
• They can be completely exhausted, but instead of just going to sleep, they prefer to sit and grumble at the world.
• They can be in the middle of a meal, get distracted by a shadow on the wall and stare at said shadow for a full two minutes before remembering that they're still hungry. At which point, they get all offended and yell at you, as if YOU'RE the one who got distracted in the middle of a feeding.
• Their hair smells really, really good. The rest of them? Smells like regurgitated milk.
• They make really sweet squeaking noises in their sleep.
• For all the time you spend kissing and holding and rocking and feeding them, they always have a confused look on their faces when they see you--kind of like when you see someone at a family gathering who looks familiar and you KNOW you should remember their name, but you can't think of it to save your life? Yeah.

Bug And Hopper, Month One

One of the few times he's asleep anywhere other than my arms:



They nap like this. I nap in the (very small) space in between:


The first bath. I'm pretty sure there's a very similar picture of Luke from a couple of years ago.


Sleeping in the sling while I sew--what else?--another baby carrier.





Buddha Baby is watching you.


Sleeping. Looking Enormous. Etc.


Weston in the carseat...


...Luke in the carseat


We got Luke a trampoline--or a "twam-po-YINE!" as he calls it--last weekend.

One!

Weston turns one month old today. Of all the month-birthdays, this one is the most bittersweet because--he was JUST born! How has it already been a month?!

This past month has been so much easier than I anticipated. I was expecting all kinds of horror and difficulty and although the first two weeks were hard for ME in terms of healing from the birth, the rest of the adjustment has been amazingly easy.

Weston has yet to realize that he is an entity separate from me, so he prefers to spend all his time ON me. Thank goodness for slings and baby carriers, because without those, I'm pretty sure we'd have spent the last month sitting on the couch at home. Instead, when McMoose returned to work when Weston was 2 weeks old, I was able to resume our normal schedule and while we're out at playgrounds and storytimes, Weston sleeps angelically in a sling. (Of course, I do pay for some of the angelic daytime sleeping when he wakes up at 3 am, wanting to discuss the state of the economy.)

Over the past week, he's gotten a little bit fussier, in part because he's spent longer periods of time awake, but most of the time, he can be calmed by going outside or taking a bath. He already seems to know that bath comes before bedtime, so no matter how tired he is, he stays awake and grumbles (ok, screeches) at me until we bathe him and then falls asleep almost immediately afterwards.

The animals have pretty much decided that this new baby stuff is old hat and they largely ignore him, but Luke is enamored by him. All day long, he wants to "see" him, touch him, hold him, kiss him--in fact, yesterday, when he (Luke) bumped his head, he didn't want me to kiss it...he wanted Weston to kiss it. For his part, Weston's reaction to his brother is usually wide-eyed surprise...but then again, that's his reaction to most things. I'm so looking forward to watching these two boys grow up together.

Pictures to come tomorrow.

Sense of Un-Accomplishment

Things I wanted to get done today:
-Straighten my hair
-Wash a load of diapers & a load of regular clothes
-Take Luke to the park
-Take a shower
-Sew
-Get Luke's and Weston's handprints
-Keep the baby fed and happy
-Pack up some clothes in preparation for our impending move

Things I actually got done:
-Kept the baby fed, if not entirely happy
-Went to the park

I'm pretty sure babies cause time to go at warp speed, which is why I can never get anything done. Except when they're yelling in your ear. Then, time slows down to the SPEED OF MOLASSES. (The reason for the yelling, you ask? Because he was sleepy, but mad that his eyes kept closing. And later, because he wanted to eat, but was mad that there was milk coming out. Turns out even happy-ish babies are out of their ever-loving minds.)

Of Newborns and Noises

Weston makes noises. Happy, newborn noises. Before this, happy newborn noises weren't really within my realm of experience because my last newborn wasn't terribly happy about his newborn status and therefore, spent most of his newborn-hood screeching at us.

I love, love, LOVE the happy, newborn noises. But? They make me feel ever so slightly guilty because...what if Luke would have been a happier newborn if he hadn't been my first kid?

Here's the thing. Before Luke was born, I read books. Hell, I even read the *right* books. The *good* ones. And the right, good books all say something like this: Babies should be fed on demand, usually every 2-3 hours.

Can I take a moment to point out the idiocy of that statement? Because EITHER you're feeding the baby on demand OR you're feeding the baby every 2-3 hours. And if you're a somewhat neurotic human being who likes rules and guidelines and numbers, chances are pretty good that you're going to read that sentence and say, "Oh, my baby will be hungry every 2-3 hours. So if it's less than 2 hours and he's crying, he's not hungry and I should try to calm him using other techniques. And if it's longer than 3 hours and he's sleeping, I should wake him and feed him, lest he wither away into nothingness." Oh, my word, the sheer stupidity.

Life with Weston goes something like this: He wakes up. I offer to feed him. He squeaks. I offer to feed him. He grunts. I offer to feed him. He poops. I offer to feed him. He falls asleep. I LET HIM SLEEP. End result: he sleeps a lot and spends almost all of his awake time eating. (Other end result: he resembles a baby sumo wrestler.) Which means that his mouth is busy, so he DOESN'T spend his awake time crying. In retrospect, this seems so obvious. Why was it such a difficult concept to grasp the first time around?

Thank You, Luke

Every night, before Luke goes to bed, he comes hopping into the master bedroom for one last hug and kiss from me. It's a stall tactic, if ever I've seen one, but it's a really sweet stall tactic; one that neither McMoose nor I can resist. And lately, it has become even sweeter because he comes in, gets a hug and kiss from me and then gently climbs up on the bed to hug and kiss his baby brother. Baby brother, for his part, usually turns in his sleep and tries to eat Luke's face.

I'm amazed at how well this little two-year-old is adjusting to the incredible changes in his world over the past two weeks. Suddenly, he's the oldest child instead of the only; he's no longer allowed to play wild games with me (for now); he went from spending the majority of his day with me to barely seeing me at all; he no longer spends the early morning hours cuddled up between me and McMoose; we no longer get to snuggle to sleep at naptime. If I were him, I'd be the grouchiest, most jealous person on the planet.

Instead, he hugs and kisses Weston. He asks if Weston is all right, if he's scared, if he's hungry. He's been testing McMoose a little bit--he is two, after all--but overall, this has been a far easier transition than I expected. And for that, I'm so grateful.

The Flamingo Down The Hall

We're at the age of un-reason, apparently, because here's a recent conversation from our house:

Luke: I'm scared of the flamingo down the hall.
McMoose: ...What did you say?
Luke: I'm scared of the flamingo down the hall.
McMoose: ...You're scared...of the flamingo...down the hall?
Luke: Yes.
McMoose: There's no flamingo down the hall.
Luke: Yes, there is. It's right there. I'm scared of it.

The flamingo has also appeared in our bathtub and our bedroom. Of all the ridiculous things to be scared of, what on earth am I supposed to do with an imaginary flamingo that walks around menacing my toddler?!