It's Not a Party Until Someone Gets Diaper Cream on Their Foot

and nine times out of ten, it's not me.  I think that thought quite a lot, because it seems to happen quite a lot with an oh so wiggly little baby boy.  He's so darn cute, I can hardly get mad.

I really don't know what it is.  I don't know if our moms just had it more together than we do or if this too shall pass but I'm envious of moms that do their hair every day - my husband is probably envious of their husbands as well.  Heck, I'm lucky to have matching shoes on when and if I leave the house.  Actually, let's say that I'm lucky if I'm wearing real shoes and not my Crocs.  I purposely purchased bright pink Crocs to wear around the house so that I would be less likely to wear them out in public.  The first two times, it was in all honesty, completely by accident - I was already in the car and down the road before I noticed I was still wearing rubber shoes, but then the last time, I just embraced it and threw on a pink sweater and acted like I tried to coordinate it.  Yes, I'm embarrassed.  But I just pointed my ponytailed head down and went about my business as quickly as possible.  That's how a lot of things seem to need to get done these days - as quickly as possible.  You never know how much time you're going to have until the baby is all up in everything again.  As I type this, I'm both impressed and relieved that I still have some typing skills after being a slave to both my iphone and iPad in recent history instead of a real computer with a real keyboard.  Bonus.

And it's possible that it's just me and I'm the only one out there that doesn't have it together with a 3 month old but I'm writing this in hopes that I'm not the only one and that at least one other person can relate.  It's a good day because I both showered and I'm wearing jeans for when Nishant gets home.  Granted, I'm wearing my Crocs but they are meant to be my shoes for in the house.  I haven't done my hair because the baby started crying before we could get that far but I'm hoping to finish jotting down my thoughts and still have time to spare to brush and ponytail.  That's something, right?

Up until about a week ago, we had a happy baby that slept through the night - while we were traveling up and down the country, on a 1500 mile trip, I might add. 

Mid-feeding at a Wendy's somewhere in VA maybe? 

We came home and transitioned him to his crib, which is upstairs, where our master bedroom is downstairs, and we have yet to have more than 1 consecutive night of no interruptions.  And when I say that, I'm pretty sure the only night without incident was the first night, but at this point, I can't even remember - maybe we didn't do it that night either.  I really can't tell if we're getting better or if we remain the same in the sleep category.  And I'm exhausted.  I had thought that by now I'd be used to the lack of sleep and be able to function but it seems like I'm reverting back to needing a solid 8 hours (heck, at least 6) to function properly and happily.  It's been a rough week and I'm tired. 

And it's 4:12 - the good wife would be downstairs starting preparations for dinner but I really felt like getting my thoughts down was more beneficial to me in my current state.  At least I planned 2 of the 3 planned meals for this week.  Meals - that's a whole other issue.  I was on a post baby diet for a hot minute - and I mean a hot minute.  I have figured out that I have no idea how to eat anymore.  Pre-baby, I was planning a wedding and was trying to stick to as close to 1200 calories as possible and through pregnancy I just ate what I wanted.  As a new, breastfeeding mom, I'm terrified of not getting enough calories and my supply dropping so I'm sort of just eating whatever the heck I want to all over again.  And then, I feel bad about being fat and do some comfort eating to add to it.  Ugh.  I tried to do a 10 minute workout the other day - yup, just 10 minutes, and only got through about 4 minutes of it before the baby started screaming.  Cherish the naptime.  You NEVER know how long its going to last, which brings us full circle to doing everything as quickly as possible.  I hear a baby waking up...

The Baby is Sleeping

A mom friend recently told me to never get too used to things that the baby is doing because good or bad, it will change. I smiled and nodded because at the moment, my 5 week old was doing something damn near close to almost sleeping through the night (as in only waking up once or twice as opposed to every hour and a half) and then as if he sensed my comfort level with him and with my sleep, it stopped just like that. Ugh. And we went on like that, with no notable pattern, for a good week. That's what I get for bragging about how awesome my kid was. Lesson learned. 

And now here we are with still a bit of a fussy baby. Nishant thinks he has colic, and I really think that he's just a baby, although he does seem to get more fussy at night time, especially when we're just ready to relax and watch some tv. This usually leads to one or both of us asking the baby why he has to be such an a-hole. Nishant will turn off the tv, throw the remote, pick up the baby and "fly" him around the house and Ayden quiets down almost instantly and even looks content, lol. The daddy airplane has at least a 95% success rate, as long as it does not make a landing. And again, the little guy is just too cute to be very mad at. 

These are some things I did with my fussy baby today, since he doesn't seem to want to be put down:

- I picked him up and rocked him, naked. I was naked, he was wearing clothes. I was just trying to take a few minutes to myself and take a shower. I wasn't even trying to wash my hair, just take a quick shower and get mostly clean. After a few minutes he closed his little eyes, I was able to out him back down and into the shower I dashed. 

- I put moisturizer only on the parts of my face that felt the driest because I was doing it one handed and that was all I could muster as the baby started making a frown face. I'm pretty sure my right arm is stronger than my left from all the baby cradling and one of these days I'm going to be better at doing the rest of my life left and single handed. 

- I sat on the floor in the laundry room with the baby in my lap so that I could transfer clothes from the washer to the dryer. The stinker looked up at me and smiles and then closed his eyes and went to sleep. 

I don't know if our feedings have been off today or what but both sides of my shirt have gotten big round wet marks at different times. Not that I needed an excuse to want a shower but that certainly added to it. 

A few weeks ago, we had some guys coming to the house to work on our vent hood. We were in the middle of a feeding and my phone rang and the guy said, "Uh, ma'am, this is so and so from such and such company and I see in my notes here that we were supposed to call when we were on our way but, uh, we're actually sitting outside your house. 

I answered the door like this, looking like I had just rolled out of bed because, hey, we had:

Now, had they called, I probably only would have changed from pajama pants to my "fancy" black sweat pants and brushed my hair (and my teeth for that matter) but it still would have been an improvement. Oh well. Just another day. I'm a mom. 

the hardest month of my life

Babies don't come with instructions. Not only do they not come with instructions, but the available information on them is endless. There are no less than 20 opinions on the absolute best and only way to raise a happy, healthy, smart child who never cries and always sleeps through the night. All along, I've been overwhelmed and just hoping that some maternal instinct would kick in when the time came. I think it has.  Now, that doesn't mean that I haven't cried in the middle of the night while asking my screaming baby why the hell he is crying. Nishant considered that the night I "almost lost it".  I'm sure we'll probably cry together again at some point but for now, I'm feeling like we have it together a little bit and he seems to be doing just fine. 

I swear, the hardest month yet of my adult life was the first month of my son's life and it's taken me almost a week to get this out in writing.  I think almost every day about some funny quip that I can use for a blog and then I get involved with feeding, changing diapers, maybe getting a shower, not getting a shower and trying to make it look like I had a shower, making time to eat something, make the bed, etc.  It's neverending.  This is his one month picture. 

Here are some of the high points:
- I get peed on a lot, maybe not once a day, but sometimes twice a day - maybe it averages out to 3-5 times a week?  And yes, I know to cover it with a diaper but there's only so much covering you can do and at some point, you have to uncover it to dry a bum and put on diaper cream and then put a new diaper on.  Bonus is that I think I'm starting to see the signs that he's about to do it and can try to plan accordingly.  I deflect it with a new closed diaper (not the preferred way - no way to control the deflection and then he ends up with pee all over), a cloth diaper or my hand which, due to my lack of preparation, usually results in also having pee on my shirt and on the floor.  He pees a lot, and with force!  The poop blowouts have been controlled up to this point just by placing him on a cloth diaper on the changing pad, but we have had our share of blowouts and have our fair share of stained diapers to show for it.

- I am so tired that I have dreams about taking naps.  In the middle of the night, I wake up in a panic.  Scratch that, the middle of the night no longer applies - it's all just a mix of feedings and 2-5 hour breaks between.  Anyhow, in the middle of whatever nap I'm taking, I wake up in a panic thinking I fell asleep during a feeding and start patting down the bed, looking for the baby. Then I realize that he's safe in his bed and the lights are off and all is right with the world and ready for the next feeding. This happens at least 3 times a week. 

- My boobs are huge. They are the only thing keeping me from wearing my pre-pregnancy tops. They're huge and they're leaky. Some days, I'm lucky enough to have not only a milk stain around my nipple but also some type of pee stain in some other area on my shirt. If I'm not leaving the house, I really have no reason to change since either scenario may very well occur again in the next 2-5 hours. *sigh*

- I tried to do some push ups the other day and realized I have no current arm or core muscles to speak of. It's like starting from scratch and it is way uncomfortable. I know it's inevitable but I'd really rather not do that again. But I would also like to wear my non-elastic jeans again at some point. I tried some on for fun the other day but I was wrong.  It was not actually fun at all. I'm glad we're in the middle of the holidays. At least I can ease the pain with a glass of wine, now. :)

You Did What with Your 4 Day Old?

We took him to the ER. Being a new parent is tough. Understatement of the century, right?

Night 1at home was tough enough. Ayden was waking up every hour wanting to eat. Oh, but before then, I had been trying to breast feed before bedtime and the little guy was a little over aggressive and made my nipple bleed, like, a lot. Christ. 

So then after that, we were up every hour either using formula or the non bloody side of the boob buffet. So I was a little tired. 

During the day, that little turkey went a minimum of two hours between feedings. I had a feeling we were on the upswing. Sunday night, early Monday morning, every time Ayden woke me up for a feeding, he was wet, like sweaty, like wet enough to make a wet mark on the sheets and need a new outfit and blanket. Naturally, thinking he was overheating, we kept trying different kinds of outfits and different layers trying to get his temperature right. At around 4 am, it was the same story and when I took his little socks off, his feet were ice cold. So, I called the after hours line for the pediatrician and she asked what his temperature was. After telling me that our baby ear thermometer was not an accurate way to measure a baby's temperature (thanks for making this product and enticing me to buy it, by the way), we had to bust out our regular digital thermometer and stick it in the little guy's bum. And then our batteries must have been low because I swear it took a good 3-4 minutes for it to read. And sticking the thermometer in his butt made him start pooping. Quite the comedy at 4 am. 

We finally get a reading of 96.4 and she tells us that we need to go ahead and go to the ER.  Tells us to tell them that we have a newborn with a low temperature to make sure they don't put him around other kids. Long story short, they bundled him all up and ran a bunch of tests and everything came back normal.  I think by the time we got there, his temperature was already on the upswing and was tested again before we left and all was well with the world. Even with getting his little baby IV, I cried more than he did. He was a trooper. 

We had our first visit with Ayden's new pediatrician the next day (or I suppose it was the same day) and he was finally able to tell us what all he should be wearing to sleep and that babies sometimes sweat and not to worry, which would have been much more helpful to hear when we called the first time. 

Oh well, better safe than sorry!  I'm sure I would do the same thing all over again if given the opportunity and it seems as though he is getting better and better every day - at everything - eating, sleeping, and we've already had multiple projectile poos. 

This new job I have may have some pretty rotten hours but I'd say the payout makes it all worth it. 

A Baby Story

Oh my, what a crazy few days!

Our baby boy, Ayden Nishant Desai, came on Thursday, September 26th at 38 weeks, 3 days, so about 10 days early. I was scheduled to have an OBGYN appointment at 9:30 and just had a funny feeling that they would tell me to go ahead and go to the hospital. I just felt a little off. 

We went to bed and I woke up around 1:15 with some severe cramping. I went through a few and then started tracking them and they were lasting around a minute and were around 5 minutes apart. My mom had a very short labor when she had me so I was very conscious of paying attention to what was going on. I let the contractions go for about an hour and then woke up Nishant and told him I was going to call the doctor. He bolted out of bed, washed his face, brushed his teeth and went to let the dogs out. He was almost dressed before I even got in touch with anyone at the doctor's office. Since it was the middle of the night, I spoke to someone with the answering service and it took about an hour to get them to call me back. At that point, I was dressed and ready to go to the hospital, regardless of what they told me. The midwife I talked to told me it was up to me but that since I wasn't very far along the week before, I probably had plenty of time. Again, due to family history, I told her that I was coming in. 

By the time I got to the hospital around 3:30 in the morning, the same midwife I talked to was surprised to tell me that I was indeed in active labor and already 7 cm dialated. I gave up any idea of a natural birth and requested the epidural immediately. It was a little bit of a waiting game and I even got in a little nap, but by around 10 we were ready to go and Ayden came into the world with a little cry at 10:21!

He had a very adventurous day 1 and wasn't really feeling the whole breast feeding thing by day 2 and got a little jaundice. He had to spend about 12 hours as a little glow worm. 

After supplementing with some formula, and getting some assistance from at least 3 nurses, he was doing a lot better and got to come off the light blankets!

By 6 pm on Saturday, we were all set and ready to go home. 

Of course we are all adjusting but we are so in love with our sweet boy, even if he wants to eat every hour in the middle of the night and sleep all day! It's a good thing he's cute!

Does this require real pants?

That's the main question I find myself thinking each day when I think about all the things I have to do.  And I have to say, at 37 weeks, 4 days pregnant, almost always, the answer is no.

I have these old baggy sweat pants that I bought in college - I've always been swimming in them - I'm not going to say that they're tight, now, but they're not nearly as loose as they used to be.  They are grey and I have to say that they go pretty nicely with all of my colored maternity shirts from Target.  They also just about flood over my shoes so that you can't tell I'm wearing my beat up J. Crew flip flops that, besides tennis shoes, are the only shoes I really want to wear, right now.  And even those flip flops make lines on my swollen sausage feet.  And I do have a few dresses that I could wear, but then I have to worry about being judged for having my flip flops in full view...right, because I'm not already being judged for wearing these pants out in public.  At least I draw on my eyebrows and touch my lashes with a bit of mascara.  Could be worse and way scarier, if we're being honest.

Ha, what an awful picture - look at that giant belly and those poor little feet.  Ah, pregnancy. :)

For instance, today, my main goal was to make it to the dry cleaners to do wife duties and drop off and pick up some shirts for the husband.  Definitely did not require real pants.  Even if I had added on a trip to the grocery store, still wouldn't have been reason enough for real pants.  In fact, had I gone to the grocery store, I would have made a point to buy some ice cream (and hey, maybe pickles, even though that's not something I'm craving) just to look more desperate in my pregnant state to be able to get away with such things as not wearing real pants.  Everyone loves a pregnant lady, right?

These are what I have found as reasons to wear real pants:
1. Doctor's appointments - so that they don't think I've given up on life
2. Out to dinner - not that we're going to fancy places but I think even Panera would frown on sweat pants - at least I used to frown at people in sweat pants at Panera, but hey, maybe I'm a little judgmental
3. Errands - I know that I didn't feel as though the dry cleaners and the grocery store required real pants but if I've got a list of places I need to go, I at least try and look like I have it together.  I am well aware of "the people of Wal-Mart" websites and emails going around but just because I'm pregnant, doesn't mean I should appear on that list (not that my sweat pants alone would warrant such a thing, but still). 

While we're making rules here, I do have to say that I've been out a few times without makeup and as someone who hardly EVER does that, to all you other pregnant ladies and moms with young children that do such a thing on a regular basis, I get it, now.  However, I would also like to say that the times I was out without makeup, one of those times I was in work out clothes (and probably showing my belly to strangers which surely distracted from my face) and the other time, I was wearing real pants.  Sometimes you have to sacrifice one for the other. 

I already know tomorrow will be a real pants day because I'll be out with Nishant and I don't want him to be embarrassed.  Might as well savor today for all it's worth and revel in the sweat pants!

The Nursery - chevron and alphabet project

I feel like I was missing the "baby gene" for at least the first 6 months that I was pregnant.  I was working hard and trying to get my at home business off the ground and frankly just couldn't be bothered to really think about all that it meant to be pregnant.  I didn't have the perfect nursery in mind and I hadn't been daydreaming about decorating it.  I was sort of dreading it, if we're being honest.  But, I did have a few ideas in mind.  I knew I wanted an alphabet wall, something like this:

 

I was overwhelmed with finding all of those different sized and styled letters and finally got the bright idea to try Etsy and found my savior!  It's a shop called simplysawdust and this was the product:

 

It was also very reasonably priced compared to what I was coming up with by trying to purchase the letters individually. 

I also knew I wanted a more gender neutral nursery - nothing that screamed boy or girl (it's a boy) and I've loved all the grey and white that I've seen around, lately, so I decided on a simple chevron wall.  I'm a little crafty and have done wall treatments similar to this before so I figured I'd give it a go myself.  My husband wasn't quite so sure about the whole ordeal but he was a good sport and our marriage survived it.

We also love elephants so I figured that could be a good way to sort of pick a theme and come up with some colors that would mix with the white and grey and give it some life.  I found this super cute set on Amazon, from Zutano.  At first, I wasn't sure about mixing the brown with the grey but it all ended up working out nicely.

So basically, we started with an all grey room (Agreeable Grey from Sherwin Williams to be exact) so I just picked up the pint size (I think) of a true white to add in the chevron.  I found a good tutorial online and with a yardstick, a laser level and some chalk, we started by chalking vertical lines on the wall, 10" apart from each other. 

 

The next step was to chalk horizontal lines, but that sounded like too much work and also just sounded like more chalk we would have to wipe away later on.  Instead, we just made tick marks down every 10 inches and then zig zagged them with our painters tape.  We had about 3 extra inches at the bottom so that last chevron is a little wonky but I think it adds character.

 

 

After that, you just figure out which ones you want to paint white.  I started with the second one from the bottom so that there would be some relief from the white base boards.  I trimmed up the corners in the lines that were being painted with an exacto knife so that I would get good, clean lines and stuck the extra tape pieces in the ones that weren't being painted so that I would remember.

 

A clue to this, which I didn't know the first time I tried a project like this, is to remove the blue tape while the paint is still wet.  Otherwise, if you give the paint the opportunity to dry, you may end up peeling some of the paint off with your blue tape.  We ended up pulling some of our paint off the walls in this case as well, but that was mostly because our base was builder grade and maybe wasn't the best place to start in the first place.

After the paint dried, I took a damp washcloth and wiped away the chalk lines.  I had to go over it twice and if you look at an angle, you can see the wipe marks, but again, I think this is mostly due to the fact that we didn't have the best wall surface to start with. 

I took my elephant pillow with me to Michaels and picked up some craft paint to paint the letters.  I used 5 different colors - white, brown, orange (as close a match as I could get), teal and lime green.  I didn't use a primer or anything (though maybe I should have) but just gave all the letters two coats of paint and called it a day.  I mixed up the color order a little bit so that it would be less predictable but who knows if that really made a difference in the final product or not. 

Initially, I had visions of stripes and polka dots and argyle but when it came down to it, I was 30+ weeks pregnant and tired and solid letters was all I could muster up the creativity to do.  I still may go back and add some additional colors in the form of stripes or polka dots to the white letters since some of them ended up in unfortunate places, but for now. I do love it and I'm so happy with how it came out.

When he's old enough to have an opinion, I hope our little boy loves it as much as I do and at least wants to keep the chevron wall and the alphabet in his room, but either way, we're ready for him!

 

The Belly Toucher

My first mistake was putting on my old, not maternity, workout pants that I used to wear all the time early in my pregnancy, with no problem. My second mistake was squeezing my 9 months pregnant belly into one of my own t-shirts, pre-pregnancy size medium, instead of opting for one of my husband's extra large alternatives. I thought it would be cute, however I can tell you it was not cute when I found myself constantly pulling the pants up or the shirt down. I just avoided eye contact instead of trying to apologize for unsolicited belly showings. 

My third mistake was taking our two dogs for a walk at a new park, at 9 months pregnant, in the above described outfit. They're good dogs but have poor leash training and there are way too many things to smell at a new park. I married into them and blame my husband for all lack of training. More unsolicited belly showings. Even less chance of an apology for it while trying to control two dogs. 

After dropping the dogs off at home, I ran some errands and ended up at Target to pick up some essentials. While checking out, my cashier asked me something about the obvious baby in my belly, I don't remember what anymore, but then she asked me if he was kicking. My response to her was, "no, not at the moment," and I could do nothing but stand there as she reached a hand out and put it squarely on the side of my belly. Oh, ok. Now I can understand it if I had said that he was moving but I just told you that he was not moving. What would possess you to, uninvited, just reach out and touch my belly?!  Do you want me to touch your belly?

As a general rule, I feel as though I can be a pretty flexible person, if you just ask. I probably would have said ok, had you asked if you could touch my belly, even as a complete stranger. But to just do it on your own without a request or any kind of warning, well, that was my first experience with that. I'll be fine with it if it's also my last. Less than 4 weeks to go. Here's hoping!