Aunt Amy Comes to Visit

(As narrated by Evan Brian)



Aunt Amy came to visit this week. She said she came down to help Mommy, but I know she came down to see how incredibly adorable I am. They all succumb to my good looks and charm.



Aunt Amy sounds a lot like Mommy... but only if Mommy took speed. I'm not sure I understood a word she said but I liked listening to her! People also say she looks like Mommy but I can tell the difference. Mommy is the one that smells like milk.



We did a lot of fun things while Aunt Amy was here. Aunt Amy and I went for a long walk while Mommy was getting an ultrasound (for an alleged abcess around her breast infection - there was nothing). We sang lots of silly songs together and we played on my play mat.



Here are some pictures of her visit:





Aunt Amy did a good job at changing my diaper and changing my clothes (I think we had to change my clothes this time because I peed all over myself - come on, I'm only 6 weeks old and it's a lot of fun).



I bet Aunt Amy has children of her own.


Aunt Amy gave me a bath in the big bath tub (comparable to my size). And look - no hammock. I was able to sit directly in the tub.



I love bath time. It reminds me of mommy's womb with all that fluid.




Aunt Amy was super comfy to take a nap on. How could I resist? I'd just had a big meal, my diaper was clean, and she was warm and willing.

But the most exciting part about Aunt Amy's visit is that I tried to sleep in my crib (instead of the bassinet, or swing, or vibrating seat). Aunt Amy was able to convince Mommy to let me try out my bedroom all by myself. I didn't like it so much the first few times, but I've been napping in there since yesterday.

It's kind of cool how Mommy can watch me sleep. Thankfully she has moved me down in the crib so I'm no longer a headless baby.

Aunt Amy left yesterday to go back to her own family. I'm sure glad she was able to visit. Maybe the next time she comes I'll be imnunized and swine flu will be gone so Mommy and Daddy will let me go out to fun places and we can all go together.

My Favorite Thing... So Far

My baby sleeps... I mean he REALLY sleeps. In fact, he sleeps so much that from the beginning I have had to wake him up to feed him. I know, this goes against the fundamental belief to not wake a sleeping baby, but to make sure he gets the nutrients he needs and doesn't go into some insulin shock or something, I have to wake him.

This has quickly turned into one of my favorite things. No, I'm not sadistic, but I am truly entertained by the faces Evan makes as he leaves his cocoon of sleep to feed.




I mean, look at this face. Here he is, just placed on his make-shift changing table and starting to stretch.

For some reason he LOVES to pucker his lips. I'm not sure if this is something I do a lot and he is mimicking. But he is damn cute!














And it continues. He has to stretch on both sides you know.







And we are still stretching but starting to become aware of the fact that waking up might not be all it's cracked up to be (and now Evan knows how Mommy feels at 3:00 in the morning with a crying baby).





And here it comes, cranky face. This is the face I get to let me know that Mr. Monkey Pants is NOT happy about waking up.













But just as quickly as it comes, it passes. And acceptance leads to peace. Right after this he opens his eyes, but that part isn't as cute as the stretching.

Hey - where did that snot go?

It Happened

This past Friday, it happened. Everyone said it would. And it isn’t that I didn’t believe them, but it just didn’t seem possible. Everyone’s story had similar threads, but I just couldn’t see how Evan would be able to play the starring role. The role that would cause him to be the hysterical screaming inconsolable baby. But, he did it and he earned an Oscar.

He had been getting progressively fussy all last week. I had absolutely no idea why, but he was still mostly sleeping through the night and when he did get fussy Daddy was still the magic potion. And then Friday came and it was as if he was just rehearsing all week for that moment.

It started around 9:30 PM. Brian had just fallen asleep on the floor (he has been finding it difficult to fall asleep) and Evan started to cry. At first there was nothing alarming about the crying, it seemed pretty normal. I woke up Brian and sent his behind to bed. I figured I would feed Evan, settle him and be off to bed myself soon. Wow, was I wrong.

Almost immediately after Brian went to bed, Evan let out his first blood curdling scream. On Friday, he was 30 days old and I had not yet heard this cry coming from him. His body was acting gassy (legs pulling up, hard abdomen, etc) so I figured it was gas and it would pass. I sat him in my lap (one of his favorite positions and a gas remover position) and he continued to scream. I put him on my shoulder, abdomen hard against the bone, and hit his back to help him release the gas. He continued to scream. I paced back and forth with him throughout the first floor, rocking him as I went. He continued to scream. I put him in his bouncy chair, turned on the vibration and now his screams had a vibrato effect to them. I took him into the guest bedroom and lay down with him on the bed. He continued to scream. Finally, I whipped out my fail-proof weapon, the boob. He didn’t even blink, just continued to scream. And, it was 11:00 PM and I was all out of bright ideas on how to soothe him, so I did the only thing that came naturally to me and started to cry.

Let me try to explain this to the few readers I have who don’t yet have children (because I know anyone who is reading this with children is shaking her head in understanding right about now). Society and nature teaches mothers that when babies cry, mothers respond and soothe. In most cases the mother does have the secret sauce (or whatever you want to call it) that will soothe their child. This feels natural and right. So, when you face a situation in which your powers have no effect (or at least no discernible effect) it rattles your confidence as a mother. Put on top of that the beautiful face of your baby, scrunched in pain, all red, with tears being squeezed out of the corner of his eyes and your heart starts to crack. Add the final piece de resistance of the scream, primordial and pain filled, and you are done. There is nothing quite like that. The worst part is you can’t tell if your baby knows you want to make it better and you wonder if he feels you just don’t care. Hence the tears.

And so we cried together, we walked together, and we rocked together on and off for about an hour. And yes, your math is correct, it is now about 12:00 PM.

So far we had gone through 2 stages of the inconsolable crying. Stage 1 was that I still believed as his mother I could make it better. Stage 2 was accepting I couldn’t make it better and crying out the emotions. I was about to enter Stage 3 – acceptance of the crying and emotional distancing.

The emotional distancing happens fairly slowly until you all the sudden realize you’ve been holding a screaming baby and watching TV but for the last 15 minutes all you heard was the TV. You realize nothing you do will make it better so you do nothing but be there. You have convinced yourself that your physical presence means something even if you can’t emotionally empathize anymore. Of course your 30 day old can’t tell you if you are right or wrong because he is too busy screaming.

And now we enter the final stage – exhaustion. At around 1:00 AM Evan had started to tire himself out. He would scream for 10 minutes and fall asleep for 5 minutes. I found that I too was falling asleep for those 5 minutes and then startled awake by his screaming. I was concerned that the startling would turn into dropping and I knew I had to call it a night. I had calculated that Brian had slept 3.5 hours and could sleep in tomorrow so it was time for tag team parenting. I went upstairs, woke up Brian, told him I didn’t care if he let Evan cry all night but someone had to make sure he didn’t fall on the tile and crack open his head and I went to sleep.

When I woke up, Brian told me Evan had pretty much pooped himself out and would sleep as long as Brian held him. IF Brian tried to put him down, bloody murder would return. And you think to yourself, how am I going to react to this baby today? How will I get over the frustration from last night?

And then you see this:



And you no longer care what happened because the only thing that matters is that your precious is no longer in pain.

Incidentally, last night was the first night we all slept through the night again. Recovery was a little bit longer than expected.

Time

Before Evan, I was very time focused. I never left the house without a watch and was never far away from a clock within my house. I was never late anywhere and even grew up in a family where being on time meant you were 5 minutes early.

My typical day started with my alarm going off at 5:50 AM. I would hit snooze for 8 minutes and it would go off again at 5:58 AM. This continued until I got up at 6:14 AM. I would get ready for work and then go downstairs for breakfast. If I was downstairs by 6:40 AM I would have eggs for breakfast. Any later and I would have cereal. I at breakfast, read the paper, and left the house around 7:15 AM for work. It took approximately 35-40 minutes to get to work and my day started at 8:00 AM. Throughout the day I had meetings dictated by the clock and an hour for lunch. At 5:00 PM I would call Brian to see if he was ready to leave and we would usually leave work around 5:30 PM. We would get home about 6:10 PM, I would get changed and start cooking dinner at 6:30 PM. We would eat by 7:00 PM and all would be cleaned up by 7:30 PM. We would watch TV until 10:00 PM and then off to bed.

Just imagine how many times during the day I had to look at a clock/my watch to be able to give you those exact times.

And then I gave birth and time became something completely different.

The first difference is the concept of “AM” and “PM.” These abbreviations were very important in my life before Evan. They dictated my schedule - where I was supposed to be, how I was supposed to dress, etc. Now, they only dictate what I eat. For instance, at 7 AM, I eat cereal and at 7 PM I eat meat.

The next difference is how I use the clock. Before Evan, 7:15 AM meant I was supposed to leave the house for work. There was an action associated with a specific time. Now, the time is only used to measure hours in between. I am not interested in 7:15 AM as a point of time, I would only be interested in it if I had fed Evan at 4:15 AM and therefore would need to feed him 3 hours later at 7:15 AM (after I ate my cereal at 7 AM). My clock has been split into 3-4 hour segments and not big hands and little hands.

I know that outside of my house, time still means something to other people so I try and keep track. I have doctor’s appointments and try to get there on time (I haven’t yet, but I’m working on it). I need to call a very busy friend and I keep trying to follow her schedule and call her at a time she is home, but I still haven’t been able to accomplish that (if only she was up at 4 AM, that is my most free time).

I imagine that at some point time will creep back into my life. I’ll sleep through the night which will create a distinction between day and night. There will be play dates, school start and end times, and a myriad of other clock related items.

I can’t say I’ll miss this weird cocoon of timelessness. It makes you feel as if you are watching everyone else as they ride the merry-go-round. They get to go around and around and all I get to do is watch. It’s nice when someone comes to visit and after a day or two they find themselves standing next to me, watching the merry-go-round. Or the days when Brian is home and not working and he abandons his plastic horse to come and stand next to me.

Well, it’s 8 AM, baby sleeping and doesn’t need to be fed until 9:30 AM. Time for some cereal.

Here is how I know I’m a mother…

When we first came home from the hospital, I spent a lot of time waiting for Evan’s mom to show up and thank me for babysitting. Just because someone at the hospital said I was his mother didn’t mean I could fully grasp that.

But, no one has come for him yet so I guess it’s up to me and I’m even beginning to believe that I’m his mother. It’s only occasionally now that I look for a strange car outside my house.

There are a few events that have occurred that make me feel like a mother....

Bodily Fluids

I can’t say I was ever the squeamish type but I definitely tried to avoid bodily fluids. Now, however, they have become so a part of my daily life that when my beautiful baby boy vomits all down the front of me after a big bout of breastfeeding, it doesn’t even bother me that I’m wiping vomit out of my cleavage with a dishtowel because that was the most handy.

And it’s gone beyond bodily fluids not bothering me, I find them humorous. The other day I was changing a dirty diaper. While I was wiping his bottom, Evan decided he wasn’t finished. And as some projectile poo came out, I just started to laugh. Then, while I was still chuckling, Evan decided to raise the hilarity ante and peed all over himself, me, and the kitchen table (no worries for those of you who eat at my house, the table has been sanitized since then) and I couldn’t control myself for a few minutes. Maybe you had to be there but my God, it was super funny.

Sleeping

I now have the ability to sleep anywhere at any time. I swear – it’s become a gift. For example, after running an errand the other day, Brian, Evan, and I stopped by Brian’s office. Brian had to pick something up. I sat down in one of his office chairs and an hour later Brian was waking me up. I had no idea I fell asleep but I was super refreshed.

I have also perfected sleeping through his late night feedings. I get in to position, give him the boob, and nod off. When he is ready to switch he lets me know. And when he is done, we often sleep together in the chair before going back to bed.

Every Child is Evan

I was warned about this, but I didn’t truly understand. The other day I was reading an article in the paper. A man had realized, after 6 hours on a 100 degree day, that he had left his son in the car instead of dropping him off at daycare. His son had suffocated in the heat. This story is not new and I have read it many times before but this time I burst in to tears. Because as I read it, I could see Evan in the back of the car, crying for someone to come and help him… and there I go again. Brian thinks I’m nuts, but now all stories about children are stories about Evan.


But the main reason I feel like a mom is because I have no idea what I’m doing and all I want to do is give Evan peace and I know I would try anything to do that for him. That and sometimes I feel like Goldie Hawn in Overboard when she cracks and they find her sitting on a chair saying “blub blub blub blub blub blub blub…”