Week One Discoveries- The Abridged Version

We had a baby last weekend, and now he lives with us.  His name is Elrod, he makes hilarious faces, and he's a very good eater.

I could go on and on about his birth and our feelings, and about how our lives will never be the same, but there are other blogs for that- blogs written by people who have had more than two showers in 8 days, probably.

But honestly, time is of the essence here.  Elrod is peacefully napping, I just ate actual food, and the laptop has a decent charge.  So I'll strike while the iron is hot and share some quick and dirty discoveries from Week One of Parenthood.


1.  After a caesarean birth (a TOTALLY different blog post), one's feet swell so much, they look like two balls of rising dough.  It takes exactly 8 days for them to return to their former, slimmer shape.  This will be the only slim thing on my body for a very long time.

2.  Babies poop in Technicolor.

3.  My birth plan has become a work of comedic fiction.  The only thing on that list that went our way was my desire to avoid an episiotomy- a procedure rendered completely unnecessary in a caesarean birth.  Oh, irony.

4.  I have become a lot less particular about how much baby urine it takes to render my clothes unwearable.

5.  The contraption I wear to pump my breast milk makes me look like a Fembot from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.  

6.  Dogs will lap up spilled breast milk before you can bend over to clean it up yourself.

7.  Our child goes through 3-4 outfits a day.  It's like a Diana Ross concert around here.

8.  "Sleep When Your Baby Sleeps" is advice coming from people with no babies living with them.

9.  Communication with my husband has begun to break down into a series of hand gestures and sentences containing little more than a subject and a verb.  "You go."  "We eat."  "He sleeps."  It's like Clan of the Cave Bear.

10.  Newborn babies have the same far-off, dreamy look in their eyes as that dancing bear in Madagascar 3.


I could go on.  I could talk about the doctors' appointments we've gone to, the visit from Grandma, the sleepless days and nights, the lactation consultant, baby gear, you name it.

But instead, I think I'll try and take a nap.

You know, because my baby is sleeping.