Life Lately #10

Reading: I'm kind of going back and forth between several books on sleep training right now, mostly for future reference (because you can't really sleep train a 7 week old baby). I'm also reading anything and everything Dr. Google can tell me about babies. Not a day goes by when I don't Google something along the lines of, "Is it normal for a ___ week old baby to...??"

Watching: Nothing really lately, I thought I'd have tons of time for Netflix but that hasn't been the case thus far. My mom keeps insisting I need to try the show Leverage, though - has anybody watched this?

Listening to: The Starlight Live album by Bethel, basically on repeat. Nothing lifts my mood more than some good worship music lately.

Wearing: Track pants, because a certain someone (not Isaiah) peed yesterday all over my one pair of jeans that fits and I haven't been able to wash them yet. 

Smelling: Diapers. Lots and lots of diapers. Breastmilk poop smells like fresh bread, but formula poop stinks like...I don't even know what (why we're partly giving her formula is a whole long story for another day). 

Eating: NOT ENOUGH. I was trying to figure out yesterday evening why I felt so sick (aside from sleep deprivation) and it occurred to me that all I had eaten in the last 18 hours was a fig bar and a half a piece of bread with peanut butter on it. When I'm beyond exhausted, food sounds disgusting to me, but then not eating makes me feel worse...it's a vicious cycle.

Loving: The new (to us) baby swing we bought, that I swore on a stack of Bibles I would never buy. There are all kinds of things you think you'll never touch with a ten foot pole but then you end up with a baby who doesn't appreciate naps like she should and you get desperate. And end up frantically searching the Facebook classified ads in your town for a gently used baby swing that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Not Loving: How much room the aforementioned baby swing takes up in our living room. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Annoyed with: How much time it takes to stay on top of washing bottles. I wish I could hire a full time bottle prepper/washer!

Creating: A crocheted baby blanket for one of Isaiah's coworkers who is having a baby girl also. I haven't found a ton of time to work on it in the last couple of weeks (wonder why!) but I'm hoping I can finish it by mid-September when they're moving out of town.

Wanting: THESE SHOES. Mark my words, as soon as I have a little more free time and energy to start working out, these babies will belong to me. Perfect motivation to get back in shape, am I right??

Laughing at: BABY SMILES. In the last week or so, Imogen has started actually smiling for real, and it's just about the best thing ever. 

Feeling: Slightly nervous for my six week postpartum checkup on Monday. I'm a little excited because the same doctor that ended up delivering the baby is the one I'll be seeing for my checkup, but I also know that she's hardcore pushy about IUDs and I don't really enjoy having to defend my reasons for refusing hormonal birth control.

Hoping: That the baby announcements we ordered don't arrive super blurry. Shutterfly is notorious for that. And also more expensive than I remember...??

Wishing: The rain would stop! It's been nonstop p o u r i n g the last week and it's hard to get out of the house because the weather has been so nasty. It's the kind of weather we normally see in early October, only it's mid August. 

Anticipating: Imogen getting a little older and appreciating toys! I can't wait to play with her for real, and we have some stinking cute toys I'm dying to show her. Right now she just does a lot of staring and wiggling, which can be fun in its own right but it'll be great when she's a little more interactive!

I have thoughts.

+ Taking care of a baby is hard work. You think it'll be easy - all they do is eat, poop and sleep, with the main emphasis on sleep. Right? You think the hardest part will be waking up every couple of hours during the night to feed them, and then they'll drift easily back into sleep and so will you. But before you know it, you're dealing with low milk supply and a baby with a high, narrow palate who isn't gaining weight like they should and you're going to doctor/lactation consultant/therapist appointments at least two, sometimes three times a week and on top of all that your beautiful, perfect baby doesn't actually seem to appreciate sleep and you're lucky if you manage a broken 4 total hours of your own sleep at night.

+ Despite all of the above, the deep love you have for this brand new beautiful human is like nothing you've ever known before and you would do literally anything for them, including pumping after every single nursing session in order to boost your supply when pumping is the actual worst.

+ Five weeks feels like five years.

+ Five weeks feels like five minutes.

+ It's hard not to feel a little bit (okay, a lot bit) annoyed with moms who get bent out of shape when their husbands are an hour late home from work because they're BASICALLY RAISING THE BABY ALONE, YOU KNOW. Not that that's not hard, but Isaiah got scheduled to work nights for the next two months, which means I am alone literally 22 out of 24 hours of the day. All day, and all night. We get two hours a day together when he isn't either sleeping or working, and I would give my right arm for him to ONLY be gone 8-9 hours a day.

+ I got a wild hair the other day and thought I would try on my "fat" jeans from before I was pregnant. HA. HAHAHA. If you value your self esteem at all, do NOT do that at only 5 weeks postpartum. I don't know whose hips and thighs these are, but they certainly aren't mine. Supposedly, breastfeeding will just melt those extra pounds right off your body but that hasn't been my experience so far at all. I lost 10 pounds the day Imogen was born, and another five over the next week...and not a pound has been lost since then...weeks ago. I'm breastfeeding exclusively, I don't overeat and most of my food is healthy. What gives!?

+ "They" say the hardest part of having a newborn tends to get better after 6 weeks. "They" also say 8 weeks, and "they" also say 12 weeks. I'm hoping for closer to 6.

+ If you have a kid(s) and you have your parents living close to you - even relatively close, within an hour or two - count your blessings.

+ I still laugh when we get blank stares after telling someone the baby's name. A lot of people think we made it up. We did not.