I’ve seen the Thursday Thirteen meme around forever, and have been meaning to play along. This is another one of those posts I’ve been writing in my head for days and pecking out in stolen moments over the last week or so.
Thirteen things I’d forgotten about newborns:
- How you start hearing phantom cries in the white noise of the shower or dishwasher or vacuum cleaner, and how you are always listening for them, even when baby is out of audible range — like, in the car with Daddy.
- How the three hours between feedings can seem like an entire day during daylight hours, and pass in the blink of an eye overnight. As in, “Oh my god, I swear I just closed my eyes – and you want to be fed AGAIN?”
- The way their feet, still reflexively curled as they were in utero, get stuck in the legs of the sleeper or curl up in the belly part.
- The way they gaze at you with the deepest and most intensely searching looks, and how you’re sure that you’ve just made an important cerebral connection with them, just before the biggest poops.
- How a fresh diaper acts as a laxative, stimulating the bowels to move almost invariably.
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How open air acts as a diuretic, and that baby boys love to make fountains.
- How much they hate it when you sit down. Under no circumstances may your butt come to rest on any piece of furniture. You can stand, you can sway, you can walk, you can dance and you can pace, but even if you maintain the exact positioning and orientation of your standing self as you ease your body into a sitting position, they will know and they will complain.
- That it’s HARD mothering a newborn. Intensely gratifying, but oh so very hard.
- That it’s easier to zip an angry cat into a wetsuit than wrangle a wriggling newborn into a sleeper, especially at 3 am.
- The endless loads of laundry. (I know, I’ve done nothing but kvetch about laundry and shovelling since the baby was born. But if I could eliminate those two things, I swear I’d have a whole extra day each week!)
- That they are fiercely strong little buggers. If a newborn doesn’t want to straighten his leg so you can bathe behind his knee, he damn well won’t do it despite the fact that you may be 18 times his size and 38 and a half years more experienced.
- The way the first smiles make it all worth while. You don’t realize how much you value an actual interaction with your kids until you start getting those first beaming, natural and gorgeous smiles. I’ve told Lucas that each smile buys him three hours of crying… lucky for both of us, he’s building up credit by the day.
- That it’s folly to think you have time to blog 13 things at all with a newborn in the house!
Happy first TT! I found going from one child to two children to be a rather rude shock with the amount of work it meant… Good luck!
#6 – bothered us a lot less after we switched to a cloth diaper service
#7 – you can even hold them in exactly the same way and somehow they know !?! It’s not like the view is any less higher to them..
#11 – or when they can turn over by themselves while trying to apply the diaper – I swear she’s almost 360 degrees from where I hold the feet sometimes
#12 – we started to worry when nothing was happening in the smile department until a few weeks (months?) after birth, but it sure makes the difference after that …
My uterus is aching for more kids!
Gorgeous!
Ahhh, the phantom cries. Showers are never enjoyable again.
I read this while nodding my head and muttering, “Yup. Yup. Yup.” under my breath.
#4 and #5 are hilarious, Dani! And finally, finally, I also updated my blog today! With a picture of my new baby! 🙂
Oops, that’s me, anonymous!
LOL!
#5 – we used to say “The Artiste likes a clean canvas.” So true!
#6 – DH was anticipating that one so much that when it started to happeen to him, he grabbed Primo’s feet to hoist him onto the new diaper fast… and poor Primo let loose all over himself. He had …liquid… in his *ear.* Yikes. He actually didn’t do it all that often, though.
hell yes. You are terrifically funny and terrifically wise.
yes to all – especially #12 as in those first few weeks, Kevin and I often said it was a good thing Sammy was so cute!
Awwww, I miss those newborn days. A little.
#11 had me in stitches! Happy T13! Visit mine if you have a minute (which I know may be impossible w/ a newborn around! LOL).
So true about the interaction – I am realizing that I don’t really know anything about the Little Guy apart from bodily functions.
That is beautiful, I am all teary now!
I’ve helped care for my nieces and nephews, and I so can relate with some of these on your list. 🙂 It really was a fun TT, in a heartwarming way 🙂