Driving With Intent to Chill

I have a newfound disdain for road improvement projects. Not so much for the improving process itself -- in fact, I have a healthy respect for torn up roads in all their rugged, chaotic glory -- but for the result: silky new asphalt that lets your car sail effortlessly over an endless smooth plane, making you feel as though you're not moving at all.

Do you know how unhelpful that is to a new mother with a screeching infant in the backseat?

I need bumps, people. Lots of head-jostling, yawn-inducing, uterus-imitating bumps. Potholes? I aim straight for them. Manhole covers? The higher the better. Trolley tracks? God's gift to deafened mom drivers. Will my love of road obstacles kill the suspension on our car? In all likelihood, yes. But that's a price I'm prepared to pay.

Learning to drive with an infant requires stamina and thick skin. Despite my best efforts, singing at the top of my lungs does little to drown out the heartbreaking, milk-producing wails of little Owen. With a baby onboard, you can either learn to ignore the cries (not possible), or learn to drive creatively to keep the littlest passenger happy. And while bumps are a welcomed luxury, constant motion is really the holy grail of mom-driving.

Vehicle-required outings have an urgent new mandate: DO. NOT. STOP. Yes, yes, I know that red bulbs and octagons may suggest otherwise, but they were clearly not implemented by folks traveling with howling newborns in a (very very) close, (claustrophobically) confined space. Must. Keep. Wheels. Rolling. I start braking 30 car lengths before a red light. I callously ignore drivers trying to merge into my lane. I've reinterpreted stop signs to be "pass-through-me-at-3-mph" signs. I selectively yield to pedestrians. And no, it's not because I'm a horrible person with a vicious case of road rage. It's because I'm a mom now, and I will do anything to keep that baby boy happy.

Recent Milestones

• Weight: 10 pounds, 11.8 ounces
• Height: 22 inches
• Slept for 6.5 hours straight (last night! woohoo!)
• Learned to smile intentionally

My two favorite boys


Twinsies!


Daddy gets a turn to feed




Nuzzled up next to Grandpa Fisher


Inserting myself into Owen's line of sight to score some eye contact


Family naptime on the couch


One month old!

Gummy Smiles

Owen has just started giving us some alert, not-caused-by-gas-or-silly-dreams, seemingly intentional smiles. iPhone in hand, I managed to catch one on video. This was my sunshine on a very wet, dreary day.

(For optimal viewing, mute the volume. If you're over age 32-days, my excessive baby talk is almost certain not to elicit the intended response.)

PS - I'm definitely a baby psychic: Owen did, indeed, have poop on his mind. Subsequent diaper change proved it. In a pretty explosive way. Forget school. I'm totally starting a 1-900 hotline.

Late Night, Redefined

At 3:00AM last night, I woke up to the now all too familiar cries of a hungry baby. After checking the time, I excitedly poked Aaron awake to drowsily celebrate an uninterrupted five-hour stretch of sleep. (Yes, that's right. We went to bed at 10:00. On a Saturday night. And it felt wonderful, thanks for asking.) I got Owen from his bassinet, took my place in the rocker by our bed, and enjoyed the cool breeze coming through the open window.

And then I found myself -- inadvertently, but nonetheless voyeuristically -- staring in on the late-night dance party/sing-a-long happening in the apartment 20 yards across from me.

"What are these crazy people doing at this hour of the night? Don't they know people are trying to sleep? Why won't they shut their windows if they must have their music on so loud?"

I sat there for a minute being pissy and tired, and then realized that ten short months ago I was having my own fun late-night dance parties. I scolded myself silently for being such an old crotchety fuddy-duddy. And then I doubly scolded myself for using the term fuddy-duddy.

I kept rocking and feeding and mourning the passing of my more fun self when the boozy dance-partiers put on some Journey. Before long, I was subconsciously rocking in time with the music and quietly humming Any Way You Want It to the baby as he lay, oblivious and milk-drunk, in my arms. Suddenly, I no longer minded their noise -- in fact, after 30 minutes of rocking in that chair, I truly appreciated the entertainment that was keeping me awake. I became the Creepy Breastfeeding Mom with an unrequited sense of camaraderie toward a bunch of fresh-out-of-college co-eds. But I'll take that over Old Crotchety Fuddy-Duddy Who Says Fuddy-Duddy any day.

So party on, neighbors. Party on.

Happy Friday!

Lessons Quickly Learned

We've been drinking from the proverbial fire hose for the last two and a half weeks, climbing that ever so steep learning curve of new parenthood and trying to raise a baby with minimal residual damage. So far I think we're passing, aided mostly by the fact that we seem to have gotten a really sweet baby boy (knock on wood...no, seriously...do it) who makes our jobs a lot easier. He's eating like a heavyweight champ (or a 9-month pregnant me), can sleep through the deafening blows of a jackhammer (luckily for that jackhammerer, who would've gotten an earful from this hormonal new mom had he woken my baby), smiles inadvertently as he sleeps (which I pretend is completely intentional and in response to my utter hilarity), and is an absolute delight to have in our lives. We've learned more lessons about parenting in 18 short days than we ever thought possible -- who knew that newborns were such effective teachers? Some of the highlights:

I would not medal in Diaper Changing Olympics. Baby boys require a certain swiftness and agility at diaper changings, which unfortunately Mother Nature forgot to include in the Maternal Instinct product suite. The clock starts ticking as soon as that dirty diaper is opened up, and by god, you'd better be ready. We've learned that even the tiniest babies have the uncanny ability to shower themselves and everything within a 3 foot radius (like Mom's face, or worse, their own) with pee. I'm thinking of putting a stopwatch by the changing table and starting time trials to get these two newbie parents up to world class diapering speed.

Karma is, indeed, a bitch. Much to my mother's amusement, I've discovered what it is like to have an extremely alert newborn, one who prefers long, intimate gazes at the ceiling fan over nice, serene, please-oh-please-give-mommy-the-chance-to-take-a-shower naps. The prolonged awake time inevitably leads to a very overtired baby, who requires some creative (read: absurd) singing and bouncing and cooing and swaddling before he'll sleep. After hearing war stories from my own newbornhood -- when I would only relieve my poor parents for 20 minute nap intervals -- I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that "sleepy baby" doesn't really run in the family. But awake babies are so much more fun than sleeping ones, right? Right?

There is a place in the market for round-the-clock washer/dryer combos. I have never, in my entire life, done more laundry than I have during the last two and a half weeks. (Ahem, family and past roommates, that speaks more to the current volume than to my prior lack of hygiene and cleanliness.) During our first night at home -- which was a certifiable disaster of epic proportions, and the details of which can only be shared in person over a cold beer -- Aaron and I did 6 loads of laundry between the hours of 10:00pm and 4:00am. (Summary: we had newborn size diapers, a bigger-than-newborn-size newborn, not enough changes of clothes/sheets/swaddles/anything, and a lot of pee explosions.) In addition to having an always occupied baby hamper, we've been haunted by baby laundry's uniquely deceptive property: you think you have a tiny load to fold, but then you realize that no, it's just the clothes that are tiny, and you actually have 3x more individual outfits to put away. So to all you aspiring entrepreneurs out there, someone should invent a washer/dryer that literally never stops working. Maybe it could even fold -- or at least lay out flat and unwrinkled -- the miniature clothing. I would pay anything. An.y.thing.

Motherhood is the most precious gift I've ever been given. All humor aside (briefly, I promise), these last 18 days have been the richest, fullest, most incredibly transformative of my whole life. Sure, I've never slept less or been quite so unsure of what the heck I'm doing. I've never worn clothes that were so consistently soiled with breast milk or spit-up or pee. I've never had a schedule that was so wholly dependent on someone else's meal plan. But I've never been so blissfully content to watch a perfect, tiny person sleep, or to wake up at 2:00AM and rock my little love back to sleep after he has eaten. Sometimes I wake him up early from naps because I miss holding him. I love snuggling him up under my chin so I can smell his little head and put his silky, chubby baby cheek against mine. This experience has already changed me in ways I could never have anticipated, and I'm so looking forward to the journey that still lies ahead.

Recent Milestones

• Weight: 9 pounds 8.8 ounces
• Height: 21.5 inches
• Started making eye contact and staring at faces
• Can hold his own head up for brief intervals
• Found and started sucking his thumb for the first time
• Started saying "mama"
• Just kidding about that last one
• Wanted to see if anyone is paying attention