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Month One. (January 2010)
For thirty days now I’ve been party to a miracle in progress. My world is vastly different than it once was now that he’s here with us and we can watch him unfold into the person he will someday become… and the worries associated with that process.
This is my fourth week as a mother. I’ve become one of those people I used to dread: I eat, sleep, dream, and live parenthood. I will unwittingly hold people hostage while regaling them with tales of my amazing baby’s adorableness. I am consumed with the mundane life functions of a tiny human, my life revolves around his nap-eat-change schedule. I’ve become fascinated with cloth diapers, and have become pretty good at using them effectively. I spend hours nursing him. I co-sleep, something I NEVER thought I’d do, but actually enjoy sharing my bed with my infant. I sit for hours with only one arm available to do anything because I’m either nursing the baby or the baby is asleep on my lap. I’m not going to forfeit a single moment with him.
The first week was complicated. Elijah spent his first week adjusting to a world full of lights, sounds, and unfamiliar experiences such as wearing clothes and being touched. There were tons of things for him to experience for the first time, and it was likely overwhelming. He did a lot of screaming when he wasn’t nursing or sleeping… and learning to nurse was a challenge for him. For me, the first week was difficult because I couldn’t move around freely without feeling like my entire body hated me. I used muscles in labor I never even discovered in my bike tours years ago. I had bruises on my legs from where I’d braced against them with my hands while pushing, my tailbone felt like it was in the wrong place, and simply making a trip to the bathroom was a fresh new hell every time. Labor was actually easier than the first week postpartum.
The second week was better. Elijah got to meet aunts, uncles, cousins from his daddy’s side, and I ventured down the stairs to survey the mess my house was in. There were things on my to-do list which I had planned to finish before he was born, like dishes and laundry, which were still undone and overwhelming since it hurt to stand for any length of time still. I also decided after a brief conversation with my grandparents that we needed to make use of my time off and take the long drive to Kansas. 14 days after he first made his appearance, we loaded up the car and made the epic journey to introduce him to more family, including a brand-new set of grandparents and great grandparents. This helped me out on many levels… first to be back with my own people, and to have some of the pressure of running a household off my shoulders for a week. For Elijah, it was an opportunity to be held and loved and held and loved… oh, and held and loved.
Week three was of course quietly spent back here at our own home, continuing to get to know one another and learn how best to function as a family unit. For me, I also began to focus on getting a milk supply up in the freezer for him to use once I return to work, as well as how to get things done while also taking care of his needs. I’m also learning how to share him with Barry, which is hard to do. Generally when he’s awake, he wants to nurse. That’s fine by me, it’s one of the best things I can do for him, and it gives me hours of closeness and time with him which I’m going to miss later.
This week, week four, we’ve spent in and out of the house with appointments, a visit to a store, and one foray up to Human Resources to drop off paperwork to make him an official part of my insurance package. We’ve also been spending more time enjoying him as he’s been awake more. Those big blue eyes have been wide open and surveying everything. He’s begun to hold his head up and look around more, to push up off his chest when he’s on his belly, and for over two weeks he’s been able to roll up onto his side. Simply brilliant. No one had to teach him these things, he just instinctively did them. I know we’re all programmed with this stuff, but it’s still amazing to watch him do it.
Elijah is a month old, which makes me a little sad because time is passing so quickly, and in four more very short weeks I’ll return to the cubefarm and leave the little guy at home with his daddy during the day. Hard to believe it was this time last year when we decided that we definitely wanted to be parents, and that so much has transpired between the discussion where we decided we could do this, to finally be putting it all into practice. With our first month now behind us, I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow and all the tomorrows behind it have in store for us.
This is my fourth week as a mother. I’ve become one of those people I used to dread: I eat, sleep, dream, and live parenthood. I will unwittingly hold people hostage while regaling them with tales of my amazing baby’s adorableness. I am consumed with the mundane life functions of a tiny human, my life revolves around his nap-eat-change schedule. I’ve become fascinated with cloth diapers, and have become pretty good at using them effectively. I spend hours nursing him. I co-sleep, something I NEVER thought I’d do, but actually enjoy sharing my bed with my infant. I sit for hours with only one arm available to do anything because I’m either nursing the baby or the baby is asleep on my lap. I’m not going to forfeit a single moment with him.
The first week was complicated. Elijah spent his first week adjusting to a world full of lights, sounds, and unfamiliar experiences such as wearing clothes and being touched. There were tons of things for him to experience for the first time, and it was likely overwhelming. He did a lot of screaming when he wasn’t nursing or sleeping… and learning to nurse was a challenge for him. For me, the first week was difficult because I couldn’t move around freely without feeling like my entire body hated me. I used muscles in labor I never even discovered in my bike tours years ago. I had bruises on my legs from where I’d braced against them with my hands while pushing, my tailbone felt like it was in the wrong place, and simply making a trip to the bathroom was a fresh new hell every time. Labor was actually easier than the first week postpartum.
The second week was better. Elijah got to meet aunts, uncles, cousins from his daddy’s side, and I ventured down the stairs to survey the mess my house was in. There were things on my to-do list which I had planned to finish before he was born, like dishes and laundry, which were still undone and overwhelming since it hurt to stand for any length of time still. I also decided after a brief conversation with my grandparents that we needed to make use of my time off and take the long drive to Kansas. 14 days after he first made his appearance, we loaded up the car and made the epic journey to introduce him to more family, including a brand-new set of grandparents and great grandparents. This helped me out on many levels… first to be back with my own people, and to have some of the pressure of running a household off my shoulders for a week. For Elijah, it was an opportunity to be held and loved and held and loved… oh, and held and loved.
Week three was of course quietly spent back here at our own home, continuing to get to know one another and learn how best to function as a family unit. For me, I also began to focus on getting a milk supply up in the freezer for him to use once I return to work, as well as how to get things done while also taking care of his needs. I’m also learning how to share him with Barry, which is hard to do. Generally when he’s awake, he wants to nurse. That’s fine by me, it’s one of the best things I can do for him, and it gives me hours of closeness and time with him which I’m going to miss later.
This week, week four, we’ve spent in and out of the house with appointments, a visit to a store, and one foray up to Human Resources to drop off paperwork to make him an official part of my insurance package. We’ve also been spending more time enjoying him as he’s been awake more. Those big blue eyes have been wide open and surveying everything. He’s begun to hold his head up and look around more, to push up off his chest when he’s on his belly, and for over two weeks he’s been able to roll up onto his side. Simply brilliant. No one had to teach him these things, he just instinctively did them. I know we’re all programmed with this stuff, but it’s still amazing to watch him do it.
Elijah is a month old, which makes me a little sad because time is passing so quickly, and in four more very short weeks I’ll return to the cubefarm and leave the little guy at home with his daddy during the day. Hard to believe it was this time last year when we decided that we definitely wanted to be parents, and that so much has transpired between the discussion where we decided we could do this, to finally be putting it all into practice. With our first month now behind us, I can hardly wait to see what tomorrow and all the tomorrows behind it have in store for us.
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Month Two. (February 2010)
As always, the last four weeks have been a learning adventure- not just for us, but for Elijah as well. Here we are in our eighth week as a family.
Sunday, Elijah will officially be a full two months old, headed into month three. He’s huge. He’s 13.5 lbs, 25 inches long, and becoming more and more independent.
He wants to use his legs more than anything, and pushes off with them to stand as often as he can when we hold him. He’s not yet mastered the art of rolling over or pushing up onto his hands when he has tummy time, but he’s working on it.
He has learned to smile as an actual response to us, and is working on learning to giggle. It's adorable. He has a dimple in each cheek and a big one in his chin. He now smiles when he first makes eye contact with me in the morning. Makes it worthwhile to open my eyes early.
He had his first round of vaccines today, 2/10, and I cried. I hated that I was the reason he was in pain, even though it’s for a good cause.
He’s learning how to swallow better with the bottle. He still chokes since every slow-flow bottle still runs too fast. He’s still not a big fan of the bottle even though he’s going to get a crash course in bottle feeding starting 2/15 when I go back to work.
Ah, yes. Going back to work.
I’ve spent eight crazy weeks here at home with the little man. 1,344 hours of concentrated motherhood to last me the next few years. It’s been amazing to watch him blossom from curled up and sleepy newborn, squinting in the light, to inquisitive infant with eyes open wide most of the day. I enjoy the quiet moments nursing him. I never thought I’d enjoy it as much as I do. I’ve also become a bit of a hermit since the weather’s been so incredibly awful the last two months, so I’m nervous about my return to my old routines. I worry about how the two roles will fit together. I know it can since so many of my coworkers are also mothers, and I have the added benefit of a stay-at-home daddy instead of strangers watching my baby… but at the same time, he’s not me. I worry that he’s going to be less interested in me when I come home since daddy’s the one who is there when he needs someone during the day.
It’s going to be hard to go back to the office and have to wait a full nine hours a day to see him, hold him, cuddle him. I’m also going to have to overcome my nervousness about carrying my pump around with me since every two hours or so I’m going to have to go take care of business or risk my milk supply dropping. Yeah, that’s one of those things no one really talks about in the open… but I really think we as women need to!
The experience I’ve had so far is that lots of folks seem to expect that I will just give up on breastfeeding in favor of formula for the sake of ‘convenience’. I’ve had about a dozen people tell me it’s what’s best for me, but what about what’s best for him? What about what I can afford? I’m not knocking the women who’ve made that decision. It’s what worked best for them, and I’m cool with that. For me, I’d rather just continue to do as I’ve been doing. Just have to do it a bit differently.
As for my husband and his new role when I return to work, he seems excited. I’ve never seen a man so ready for the challenge of daytime solo parenting even though it’s not as widely accepted that he be the stay at home parent.
Here we go into our third month as a family, and all the adventure therein.
Sunday, Elijah will officially be a full two months old, headed into month three. He’s huge. He’s 13.5 lbs, 25 inches long, and becoming more and more independent.
He wants to use his legs more than anything, and pushes off with them to stand as often as he can when we hold him. He’s not yet mastered the art of rolling over or pushing up onto his hands when he has tummy time, but he’s working on it.
He has learned to smile as an actual response to us, and is working on learning to giggle. It's adorable. He has a dimple in each cheek and a big one in his chin. He now smiles when he first makes eye contact with me in the morning. Makes it worthwhile to open my eyes early.
He had his first round of vaccines today, 2/10, and I cried. I hated that I was the reason he was in pain, even though it’s for a good cause.
He’s learning how to swallow better with the bottle. He still chokes since every slow-flow bottle still runs too fast. He’s still not a big fan of the bottle even though he’s going to get a crash course in bottle feeding starting 2/15 when I go back to work.
Ah, yes. Going back to work.
I’ve spent eight crazy weeks here at home with the little man. 1,344 hours of concentrated motherhood to last me the next few years. It’s been amazing to watch him blossom from curled up and sleepy newborn, squinting in the light, to inquisitive infant with eyes open wide most of the day. I enjoy the quiet moments nursing him. I never thought I’d enjoy it as much as I do. I’ve also become a bit of a hermit since the weather’s been so incredibly awful the last two months, so I’m nervous about my return to my old routines. I worry about how the two roles will fit together. I know it can since so many of my coworkers are also mothers, and I have the added benefit of a stay-at-home daddy instead of strangers watching my baby… but at the same time, he’s not me. I worry that he’s going to be less interested in me when I come home since daddy’s the one who is there when he needs someone during the day.
It’s going to be hard to go back to the office and have to wait a full nine hours a day to see him, hold him, cuddle him. I’m also going to have to overcome my nervousness about carrying my pump around with me since every two hours or so I’m going to have to go take care of business or risk my milk supply dropping. Yeah, that’s one of those things no one really talks about in the open… but I really think we as women need to!
The experience I’ve had so far is that lots of folks seem to expect that I will just give up on breastfeeding in favor of formula for the sake of ‘convenience’. I’ve had about a dozen people tell me it’s what’s best for me, but what about what’s best for him? What about what I can afford? I’m not knocking the women who’ve made that decision. It’s what worked best for them, and I’m cool with that. For me, I’d rather just continue to do as I’ve been doing. Just have to do it a bit differently.
As for my husband and his new role when I return to work, he seems excited. I’ve never seen a man so ready for the challenge of daytime solo parenting even though it’s not as widely accepted that he be the stay at home parent.
Here we go into our third month as a family, and all the adventure therein.
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Month Three. (march 15, 2010)
Month three has had some milestones and some challenges. Elijah is now 14.8 lbs, 26.5 inches tall, alert most of the day, and has mastered the art of drinking from a bottle without choking (took him all of 11 weeks to figure that one out, they all flowed too fast). He has learned to laugh and to smile when he sees someone he knows (mostly mom and dad). He babbles off and on, sometimes even while latched on to the breast or bottle. I can already tell he’s going to be ‘that kid’. You know, the one who has to be told at least once a meal to not talk with his mouth full? That kid. Most of his reflux issues have calmed down and I no longer have to exclude all the good things I love from my diet (as long as they’re in moderation) for fear of giving poor little E heartburn… though at least once a day he gives an epic spew of partially digested milk all over whomever may be holding him at that point in time.
He has also discovered that he loves to stand. Elijah will stand for as long as someone can hold his hands for him. He even tries to walk while doing this. At least once a day when I’m home I let him play in his jumper- it hangs from the door frame so I can move it to whatever room I’m working in, turn on music, and let him go. He usually squeals and spins, though bouncing is something he’s trying to figure out. He hasn’t gotten the muscle coordination down yet for that!
On top of all of these developments, we’re discovering that Elijah has a sense of rhythm. It’s uncanny to watch him keep time to something. We first noticed it last Sunday afternoon, when at the end of the movie Barry and I had been watching (Elijah was playing on his gym mat at the time) a song came on that neither of us had played for him before. He began kicking both feet into the floor in time with the percussion in the song. We hit pause on the movie, he stopped. We hit play, he began again. Interesting.
Barry has been handling daytimes like a champ, even though we can set a clock by Elijah's cranky hours- 11:00 am, 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:00pm- which only fail to occur if he's asleep. He brings Elijah to lunch for me every day that he can so I can spend a little quality time with him, and Barry can take a nap while I get my quality time. It works out well.
As for me, I’m adjusting pretty well to being back at work. I can't say I'm not jealous of my husband getting to spend all day with our little package of awesomeness. There's alot I miss during the day, and I come home to the tired baby, tired husband, housework, and tired self. There's still some tweaking needed to make this new life blend with the old life.
He has also discovered that he loves to stand. Elijah will stand for as long as someone can hold his hands for him. He even tries to walk while doing this. At least once a day when I’m home I let him play in his jumper- it hangs from the door frame so I can move it to whatever room I’m working in, turn on music, and let him go. He usually squeals and spins, though bouncing is something he’s trying to figure out. He hasn’t gotten the muscle coordination down yet for that!
On top of all of these developments, we’re discovering that Elijah has a sense of rhythm. It’s uncanny to watch him keep time to something. We first noticed it last Sunday afternoon, when at the end of the movie Barry and I had been watching (Elijah was playing on his gym mat at the time) a song came on that neither of us had played for him before. He began kicking both feet into the floor in time with the percussion in the song. We hit pause on the movie, he stopped. We hit play, he began again. Interesting.
Barry has been handling daytimes like a champ, even though we can set a clock by Elijah's cranky hours- 11:00 am, 3:30pm, 5:30pm, 7:00pm- which only fail to occur if he's asleep. He brings Elijah to lunch for me every day that he can so I can spend a little quality time with him, and Barry can take a nap while I get my quality time. It works out well.
As for me, I’m adjusting pretty well to being back at work. I can't say I'm not jealous of my husband getting to spend all day with our little package of awesomeness. There's alot I miss during the day, and I come home to the tired baby, tired husband, housework, and tired self. There's still some tweaking needed to make this new life blend with the old life.
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