One week down, 18 years to go...

I settled into my first week as a mommy. The baby slept a lot. But it was only in 2-3 hour intervals. I tried to sleep when he slept but it was very difficult. Nighttime was a challenge. I slept in our spare room and had his pack-n-play set up. He slept all bundled and swaddled in the bassinet section of the pack-n-play. We had a real bassinet that had been in the family for 40 years. It was a wooden cradle. It had been passed around and every time a baby used it, their name was written on the bottom. Our son was the 35th name. Unfortunately he hated the thing. We tried it a couple of times but he cried and cried. He seemed to prefer the pack-n-play. I would get him to sleep then lay in bed watching TV. I would eventually fall asleep and whem my little food timer went off, I would sleepily drag myself into the kitchen and make a bottle. The baby would eat and then go back to sleep. But by then, I was wide awake. So I would watch TV again and wait for the next ding of the timer. It is amazing how your body adjusts to sleep irregularity. I was exhausted most of the time but I was able to function. Other the exhaustion, it was difficult because my husband and my dogs were cuddling in our upstairs bedroom and I kind of felt left out. Like I was living a separate life than the three of them.

He ate a lot. Feeding every 2 hours seems crazy. I felt like I was always feeding him. He would be done with a bottle and I would start my countdown. Two hours really isn't a lot of time to get things done or to nap before the next bottle. And the cleaning and boiling of the bottles was a such a pain. I had a dishwasher but I didn't trust it. I felt like everytime something came out of it, I had to clean it again anyway. So I was boiling them and washing them with hot, soapy water. Making the bottles wasn't fun either. I boiled a big pot of water and let it cool in a glass pitcher. I kept it covered on the counter. Then I would add the water to the bottle, add the formula and mix. Seems easy. But at 3 in the morning, it is rather challenging. I should have made a big batch of formula and kept it in the fridge but then I would have had to warm the bottles. I usually just fed him with room temperature bottles so my system worked for us.

He pooped a lot. Well he did a lot of #1 and #2. I was peed on a few times before we figured out how to keep the old diaper on while sliding the new diaper under the baby's bottom. Then like pulling a tablecloth off of a table full of dishes, I would slide the old diaper off and put the new one in place. Like magic. But we still had to clean his little wound. It was healing and it didn't seem to bother him. But my god, he screamed whenever he was getting changed or dressed. And it was such a cute little scream. I laughed every time. We also discovered that his poop had a mind of its own. I could tell when he was going because his little nostrils would flare and he would turn bright red. And it sounded like I was squeezing frosting out of a bakery bag. Anyway, we discovered on more than one occasion that when it seemed like he was done, he probably wasn't. We would start to change the diaper when more would come shooting out. And when I say shooting out, that is exactly what it did. It was funny every time. I also noticed that the texture was strange. The first time I changed a poopy diaper, I said "Who fed him sesame seeds?" That's what it looked like. I was scared at first but I was told that it was normal. I was never overly grossed out by potty humor but I never knew I would talking about and laughing about poop so much.

So the first week gave me a glimpse of how the next few months would be. At this point, he really didn't do anything fun, well other than the aforementioned diaper antics. I just couldn't wait until he was able to smile and laugh and eat food, etc, etc, etc. But then I looked at him, so tiny, and wondered how I would ever be ok with him getting bigger and older.