The First 100 Days

Yesterday marked the 100th day of our lifelong term as The Parents. In honor of this milestone, a look back at all we've accomplished (or not) and the lessons we've learned along the way:

The Economy: Armed with an iPhone and free 2-day shipping, I have valiantly set out to save the US economy, one Amazon 1-Click order at a time. My account history confirms this: 42 orders since July, the vast majority placed sometime between midnight and 3:00am. From the comfort of my rocking chair with sleeping/nursing babe in arm, I've checked a variety of items off my shopping list, like diapers and baby wash, breast milk storage bags and various bottles, and every kind of pacifier ever created, purchased in the hope that Owen will please-dear-God-just-decide-to-like-one. When the UPS delivery guy comments on the volume of packages destined for Apartment 2A, you know you've done your part in fueling the American economy.

Job creation: There is no American who can create jobs more effortlessly and expeditiously than a newborn. Take our household, for example. With a lottery-won budget, I would staff this place with at least 6 additional FTEs. How about Head of the Diaper Authority, who could oversee changing and butt wiping, diaper disposal and smell management, and emergency bathing for when things get really crazy? Or Director of Laundry, who would have a dotted line relationship to the Diaper Authority and handle all collateral damage to clothes and sheets and towels? There's clearly a role for Chief Putter-to-Sleeper (CPS), who of course needs a Deputy for those nights when additional resources are needed to preserve sanity and hearing. I'd hire a Bottle Administrator, who could assemble and heat bottles with best-in-class speed. And maybe a PR Rep, who'd always be on-hand to explain to grumpy members of the public that all babies cry, no I'm not doing anything to hurt him, and yes I'm quite certain they couldn't do any better.

Energy: Our current energy source is unmistakably nonrenewable and -- after 3 months of nightly sleep interruptions -- is being depleted at an alarming rate. We know that this is the biggest challenge for our administration going forward, and we're conducting an all-out search for alternative energy reserves. We'll be sure to provide updates when and if they become available.

Thanks to (Great-)Grandma Fisher for knitting 3 generations of stockings

Owen's religiously diverse holiday season

Christmas Eve pajama party at Uncle Rob and Aunt Jamie's

Our family's first Christmas morning

I definitely have a thing for baby+hats

Quality lap time with Grandpa

Playing a game of peekaboo with Grandpa and the mirror

Grandma's left arm = favorite sleeping spot

The Barasz/Fishers on Christmas night

Happy holidays!

Busy getting ready for Christmas and making myself sick on Christmas desserts, so just pictures this week. Hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah!

Month 2 vs. 3

Owen's new best friends: Right Hand and Left Hand

Daddy and O

Couldn't be conned into a smile, but we'll take what we can get

Pondering the grocery list for Christmas dinner with Grammy

"Really, Mom? Another ridiculous hat?"

Hanging with Uncle Robert

Happy in the Bumbo seat

Sheepish grin after his usual naptime swaddle escape

Baby Unfriendly

Over these last 3 months, I've come to learn the hard truth: the world was simply not designed to accommodate babies. In fact, it may have actually been designed as a sort of make-God-laugh obstacle course for mothers. Despite the fact that "was a baby" is the sole common line on every person's resumé of life, much of the world seems to forget that babyhood is inevitable and necessary, and they've made it mind-bogglingly difficult for infant-toting moms to navigate in any remotely graceful way.

Some key areas of difficulty:

The Diaper Change: I recently went out to a fancy lunch at a fancy restaurant and had to go in search of a fancy bathroom to change a decidedly unfancy poopy diaper. Surprise, surprise. Fancy restaurants do not have changing tables. I put on my Mommy MacGyver hat, found a fancy towel cabinet, cleared off the fancy potpourri adorning the top, and defiled that fancy furniture and made my own changing table. Hey, if you're not going to consider your not-yet-potty-trained-but-still-a-human-being clientele (read: people who don't deserve to be changed on a urine-splattered stall floor), then any elevated flat surface is fair game for baby butts.

The Breastfeed: Having lost all modesty by this point, it's no longer difficult to find a public place where I'm comfortable nursing. But that hasn't made feeding logistics a non-issue. While flying home from Thanksgiving, I was harassed by TSA Officers who deemed my breast pump a threat to national security. They scanned my bag three times and tested the pump for bomb residue. Then they finally thought to ask me what it was. (Geniuses.) Luckily they took my word for it and didn't force me into the very bovine act of milking in public.

The Stroller Roll: Like many city moms, I have a heavy-duty stroller that can be stopped by neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, and could probably take flight if the conditions were just right. With all that functionality comes weight and heft, which means I'm definitely not climbing any stairs with that beast. So as I got off the train yesterday, I had a moment of panic when I realized that the station did not have an elevator. I was trapped. I subconsciously started humming the old song about Charlie, the man who couldn't get off the T and "would ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston." Luckily, my time 'neath the streets was only 15 minutes, but with a fussy baby who just wanted to start moving again, it sure felt like forever.

Really, it's just too bad we all can't remember what it was like to be 3-months-old and grumpily hungry or uncomfortably soiled or frustratingly immobile. Maybe then we'd make it a little easier for all the Tiny People and their mommies who are just trying to make it work.

The Bumper Jumper -- absolute best thing $31 can buy

Ready for winter

Buying Owen's first Christmas tree!


Getting in the holiday spirit!

My two loves at my favorite time of year

Can we keep the tree up year-round? Best baby entertainment ever.

Messages to Mommy

Owen's first unambiguous message to Mommy: daytime napping sucks and I'd much rather spend the whole day awake with you [because you're so hip and cool and interesting and an amazing singer and dancer and you're basically the best mom ever]. The implication is that I have 2 to 3 hours of baby-free time per day, which has made blogging a little more challenging. So in order to get in my one post for the week, I'm copping out with a video post. More next week!

A less obvious, but oh-so endearing message to Mommy:

Said bear costume and big boy stroller

Finding the Time

Aaron and I don't have a clock in our room. We've always used our phones as alarm clocks, and now that the prospect of oversleeping seems like a divine gift rather than a fate to be avoided, this doesn't seem like the time to invest in one. So in those groggy moments between the first middle-of-the-night baby cry and fumbling to find my phone and check the time, it's deceivingly difficult to answer a seemingly straightforward question: have I been asleep for 40 minutes, 4 hours, or 4 days?

The answer lies in the context clues. If the neon lights are still glowing above the restaurant outside our window, it's before 4:10AM. If moderately incoherent guys are stumbling loudly down the sidewalk, the neighborhood pub just had last call and it's just after 2:00AM. If I can hear the faint hum of street sweepers outside, it's between 3:00AM and 5:00AM. If I feel mind-numbingly tired and have to pry my eyelids open with two fingers, it means I'm back to reality and that feeling of restfully sunbathing on a beach in Fiji was just a dream.

By dawn, it really doesn't matter if I've shut my eyes for 15 minutes or 15 hours -- after 75 days of oft-interrupted sleep (coming on the heels of 9 months of nights punctuated by potty runs), I feel pretty much the same: really, really tired. But there's something about clock time that has a helpful placebo effect. Yes, I may be equally tired regardless of the numbers on the clock, but if I wake up to find that it's already 3:00AM and quick mental math says that Owen has slept for 7 hours straight, I feel an optimistic (albeit hazy) moment of delight. That we're making progress. That things are falling into place. And that maybe I wasn't really sentenced to sleeplessness-for-life without the possibility of parole.

The Funny Hat, which will make for endless fun when Owen's a dating teenager

Deviously figuring out how to watch TV when Mama leaves the room

Odd sleeping positions, coupled with a fragile slumber that I'm too petrified to disturb, are great for building mommy biceps

Owen meets his first set of great-grandparents!

Surely scheming about something

Happily hanging with Grandma "La La" Fisher