...One Month...
The Watson Trio (as I now affectionately call us) has made it through the first month postpartum! To celebrate, I wore a regular bra for the first time in six months. Okay, so I didn't do that to celebrate, but I did do it with much gusto. One never realizes how much one misses underwire and fun colors/prints until they're gone.
In some ways, this month has passed far too quickly, and in others it has lasted for an eternity. It is so odd to think that one month ago today, at this exact moment (approx. 2:00 p.m.) I was beginning to push. I find it bizarre to be nostalgic for a hospital stay, but that is what I find myself doing at times when I get the occasional spare moment of time for free thought nowadays. Lucy's birth was such a great experience, and it was such a special, precious time that I often think, "If I could just go back and savor it a little bit more." Undoubtedly, I will find myself thinking that more and more as the weeks and months progress. Yesterday was bittersweet as I packed away all of her little newborn clothes. She's working on quite a nice buddha belly now, and she is getting longer by the day it seems. Patrick squeezed her into her strawberry sleeper for the last time a few nights ago, and as I noticed the fabric straining at the seams, I decided it was time for the first clothing milestone. While I neatly folded her sleepers and onesies and put them in labeled ziploc baggies, I wondered if and when I'd be getting these back out for one of Lucy's siblings. I know, I know, it's only been a month! But we will definitely be having at least one more if we're able, maybe two if we happen to hit the lottery on one of these $400 million instances. If Baby #2 (or #3) isn't another sweet little girl, I know I'll take these precious outfits out of storage again and show them to Lucy, marveling at how tiny she once was. The hope that I'd see these clothes again in this manner was one of only two things that kept me from curling into a ball and weeping right there on the floor! The other of the aforementioned "things" was the thought that Lucy is doing exactly what she's supposed to do: thrive! It's intolerably sad to think that she's no longer a tiny, snuggly newborn, but it's thrilling and reassuring to know that she's turning into an alert, active baby.
Enough about me and my sad Mom hormones, though. Let's talk about the baby. Here are some observations about Lucy's first month:
- She slept in her bassinet for all of a week and then promptly let us know that she preferred sleeping in her bouncer. To accommodate her request, we moved our (very large) brown occasional chair out of our living room and butted it up to the bed in our (very small) bedroom. It's pretty funny to look at actually, and I may post a picture of it before she decides she's ready for the crib.
- She is a world champion pooper. We should've known that we were in for some...um...fun...when Lucy exploda-poo'ed all over the precious, sweet, adorable gown that we put her in for her first night at the hospital. Understandably exhausted after Day 1 in the hospital, we woke up at dark thirty to her absolutely screaming because she had filled her gown with black, sticky meconium poop. In my bleary-eyed, new mom panic, I called the nurse and literally said, "My child just exploded! There's poop everywhere! I don't know if we can clean her up ourselves!" I could hear the laughter in the background as she assured us she'd be to our room in a minute. We managed to get her cleaned up ourselves without needing to give her a sponge bath, but the gown was not so lucky. We couldn't trash the gown she wore on her first night, though! I begged Patrick to take it to the sink (which happened to be right by the door) and try to salvage it as best he could. He got out most of the poop, but the bottom half of the gown was stained a lovely shade of green. He laid it out on the counter to dry for the next day and a half, so the first thing that everyone (i.e. family, nurses, doctors, food service people, newborn photographers, etc.) saw when they came through our door was the doodie-stained gown. Lovely. Welcome to our room. I'm sure you'll be glad to know that with some elbow grease and Oxi-Clean, the gown is now as good as new.
- Lucy is a Snugglebug. In fact, the nurses at the hospital pointed this out to us when she'd fall asleep every time we'd try to feed her. Luckily, she now stays wide awake during feedings, but she still loves to snuggle up to any available chest whenever possible.
- She can hold her head up, push up with her arms, and put weight on her legs. I have no idea if this is normal or highly advanced baby stuff at this age, but I'm just going to go with "highly advanced." I find it no coincidence that she was born on the opening day of the 2012 Olympics (which we watched continuously during those blurry first two weeks) and already shows amazing gymnastic potential. :) When I put her on her play mat for Tummy Time, she pushes her butt up in the air with her legs and will actually scoot herself to the other side of the mat. Sometimes she gets tired of holding her gigantic head up, so she will be scooting along, head down like a little snowplow. I'm not sure if I'm a bad mother for laughing at her looking so goofy, but hey. Once she figures out how to add her arms into the equation, I predict an early crawler.
- She hasn't found her hands yet, but she's grabbing for certain things. She loves to grab for the toys dangling from her play mat, and she will hold on for dear life when she finally gets one. She's also starting to grab onto her bottle when we feed her because, let's be honest, the girl likes to eat.
- She is constantly "mouthing." At first I mistook this for continual hunger cues and would run to get a bottle at first glimpse of the tongue waggling thinking that my child must be starving, but I quickly discovered that she just likes to move her mouth and stick her tongue out when she promptly fountain puked all over the sofa upon too much receipt of said bottle.
- I think she likes music. I say, "I think," because who the heck really knows what one month old babies like anyway? If she gets fussy, she will stop for a few minutes if I put on music or fire up one of her musical toys. Also, I've found that I've forgotten half the words to childhood songs over the course of the past twenty-seven years. Given this fact, most of the stuff I sing to her either has a bunch of sounds inserted where I don't know the words or is a wildly inappropriate song off the radio. For example, I find myself singing "Hot in Hurrrr" by Nelly when I'm undressing her or singing a version of a song tailored just for her. Instead of "Pokerface," she gets, "Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-poopy face." I hope I'm not damaging her cognitive function with pop culture overload.
- Girlfriend has a temper. She normally goes from zero to sixty in about 1.27 seconds. If we're not getting the bottle ready quickly enough, she doesn't fuss...she screams. The entire doctor's office was privy to this anger a few weeks ago. She was screaming so loudly that people were coming out of the front office to see her. "Awww, she's SO mad," they'd say. Yes, isn't a pissed off baby just ADORABLE?
- Her hair is becoming a little more red. Patrick denies this, but he married a ginger, so I don't see what the big deal is.
- She's beginning to coo, and I think she may even have given me a couple of spontaneous smiles in the past couple of days.
I'm excited to see what the next four weeks hold!
In some ways, this month has passed far too quickly, and in others it has lasted for an eternity. It is so odd to think that one month ago today, at this exact moment (approx. 2:00 p.m.) I was beginning to push. I find it bizarre to be nostalgic for a hospital stay, but that is what I find myself doing at times when I get the occasional spare moment of time for free thought nowadays. Lucy's birth was such a great experience, and it was such a special, precious time that I often think, "If I could just go back and savor it a little bit more." Undoubtedly, I will find myself thinking that more and more as the weeks and months progress. Yesterday was bittersweet as I packed away all of her little newborn clothes. She's working on quite a nice buddha belly now, and she is getting longer by the day it seems. Patrick squeezed her into her strawberry sleeper for the last time a few nights ago, and as I noticed the fabric straining at the seams, I decided it was time for the first clothing milestone. While I neatly folded her sleepers and onesies and put them in labeled ziploc baggies, I wondered if and when I'd be getting these back out for one of Lucy's siblings. I know, I know, it's only been a month! But we will definitely be having at least one more if we're able, maybe two if we happen to hit the lottery on one of these $400 million instances. If Baby #2 (or #3) isn't another sweet little girl, I know I'll take these precious outfits out of storage again and show them to Lucy, marveling at how tiny she once was. The hope that I'd see these clothes again in this manner was one of only two things that kept me from curling into a ball and weeping right there on the floor! The other of the aforementioned "things" was the thought that Lucy is doing exactly what she's supposed to do: thrive! It's intolerably sad to think that she's no longer a tiny, snuggly newborn, but it's thrilling and reassuring to know that she's turning into an alert, active baby.
Enough about me and my sad Mom hormones, though. Let's talk about the baby. Here are some observations about Lucy's first month:
- She slept in her bassinet for all of a week and then promptly let us know that she preferred sleeping in her bouncer. To accommodate her request, we moved our (very large) brown occasional chair out of our living room and butted it up to the bed in our (very small) bedroom. It's pretty funny to look at actually, and I may post a picture of it before she decides she's ready for the crib.
- She is a world champion pooper. We should've known that we were in for some...um...fun...when Lucy exploda-poo'ed all over the precious, sweet, adorable gown that we put her in for her first night at the hospital. Understandably exhausted after Day 1 in the hospital, we woke up at dark thirty to her absolutely screaming because she had filled her gown with black, sticky meconium poop. In my bleary-eyed, new mom panic, I called the nurse and literally said, "My child just exploded! There's poop everywhere! I don't know if we can clean her up ourselves!" I could hear the laughter in the background as she assured us she'd be to our room in a minute. We managed to get her cleaned up ourselves without needing to give her a sponge bath, but the gown was not so lucky. We couldn't trash the gown she wore on her first night, though! I begged Patrick to take it to the sink (which happened to be right by the door) and try to salvage it as best he could. He got out most of the poop, but the bottom half of the gown was stained a lovely shade of green. He laid it out on the counter to dry for the next day and a half, so the first thing that everyone (i.e. family, nurses, doctors, food service people, newborn photographers, etc.) saw when they came through our door was the doodie-stained gown. Lovely. Welcome to our room. I'm sure you'll be glad to know that with some elbow grease and Oxi-Clean, the gown is now as good as new.
- Lucy is a Snugglebug. In fact, the nurses at the hospital pointed this out to us when she'd fall asleep every time we'd try to feed her. Luckily, she now stays wide awake during feedings, but she still loves to snuggle up to any available chest whenever possible.
- She can hold her head up, push up with her arms, and put weight on her legs. I have no idea if this is normal or highly advanced baby stuff at this age, but I'm just going to go with "highly advanced." I find it no coincidence that she was born on the opening day of the 2012 Olympics (which we watched continuously during those blurry first two weeks) and already shows amazing gymnastic potential. :) When I put her on her play mat for Tummy Time, she pushes her butt up in the air with her legs and will actually scoot herself to the other side of the mat. Sometimes she gets tired of holding her gigantic head up, so she will be scooting along, head down like a little snowplow. I'm not sure if I'm a bad mother for laughing at her looking so goofy, but hey. Once she figures out how to add her arms into the equation, I predict an early crawler.
- She hasn't found her hands yet, but she's grabbing for certain things. She loves to grab for the toys dangling from her play mat, and she will hold on for dear life when she finally gets one. She's also starting to grab onto her bottle when we feed her because, let's be honest, the girl likes to eat.
- She is constantly "mouthing." At first I mistook this for continual hunger cues and would run to get a bottle at first glimpse of the tongue waggling thinking that my child must be starving, but I quickly discovered that she just likes to move her mouth and stick her tongue out when she promptly fountain puked all over the sofa upon too much receipt of said bottle.
- I think she likes music. I say, "I think," because who the heck really knows what one month old babies like anyway? If she gets fussy, she will stop for a few minutes if I put on music or fire up one of her musical toys. Also, I've found that I've forgotten half the words to childhood songs over the course of the past twenty-seven years. Given this fact, most of the stuff I sing to her either has a bunch of sounds inserted where I don't know the words or is a wildly inappropriate song off the radio. For example, I find myself singing "Hot in Hurrrr" by Nelly when I'm undressing her or singing a version of a song tailored just for her. Instead of "Pokerface," she gets, "Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-poopy face." I hope I'm not damaging her cognitive function with pop culture overload.
- Girlfriend has a temper. She normally goes from zero to sixty in about 1.27 seconds. If we're not getting the bottle ready quickly enough, she doesn't fuss...she screams. The entire doctor's office was privy to this anger a few weeks ago. She was screaming so loudly that people were coming out of the front office to see her. "Awww, she's SO mad," they'd say. Yes, isn't a pissed off baby just ADORABLE?
- Her hair is becoming a little more red. Patrick denies this, but he married a ginger, so I don't see what the big deal is.
- She's beginning to coo, and I think she may even have given me a couple of spontaneous smiles in the past couple of days.
I'm excited to see what the next four weeks hold!
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